Doug Barron, the man to become the first player suspended under the PGA Tour's Anti-Doping Program, has filed suit in US District Court in Memphis, Tennessee, to seek an injunction against the PGA Tour.

Barron wants the courts to overturn his one year suspension and force the PGA Tour to compensate him for the damage to his reputation by being branded a cheater.

The suit alleges that Barron was suspended for testing positive for a beta-blocker, Propranolol, that Barron claims the Tour knew he was taking and has been taking for some 22 years.  Further, Barron alleges that the Tour denied his request to continue using the drug under a Therapeutic Use Exemption (TUE) that can be granted under the Tour's program policy.  Instead, the Tour suggested that Barron wean himself off of the drug.  He was trying to do that when he failed the test that caused his suspension, Barron claims.

The PGA Tour's Anti-Doping Program Manual says that a Therapeutic Use Exemption can only be granted if the following four conditions are fulfilled:

1. The player would experience a significant impairment to health if the Prohibited Substance or Prohibited Method were to be withheld in the course of treating an acute or chronic medical condition
2. The therapeutic use of the Prohibited Substance or Prohibited Method would produce no additional enhancement of performance other than that which might be anticipated by a return to a state of normal health following the treatment of a legitimate medical condition
3. There is no reasonable therapeutic alternative to the use of the otherwise Prohibited Substance or Prohibited Method
4. The necessity for the use of the otherwise Prohibited Substance or Prohibited Method is not a consequence, wholly or in part, of a prior non-therapeutic use of any substance on the PGA TOUR Prohibited List.

In other words, a TUE will be granted if there isn't a better alternative and the drug in question wasn't prescribed to treat problems from using another banned substance.  There is a process of filings and appeals that Barron may have gone through, which were ultimately denied by the Tour.

Also, the player can file for a retroactive TUE within 30 days prior to a tournament.  Such a filing is only granted if "the player undergoes, at his expense, all testing procedures required by the PGA Tour’s TUE Committeeand where the medical justification for the TUE is clear."  Further, this filing requires a fee of $10,000.  It would be a Get Out of Jail for $10,000 card.

This would not really explain Barron's positive test, though, provided that the positive test likely happened in September.

Now, this is the same guy that was quoted in the PGA Tour's press release on the subject as saying:

"I would like to apologize for any negative perception of the TOUR or its players resulting from my suspension. I want my fellow TOUR members and the fans to know that I did not intend to gain an unfair competitive advantage or enhance my performance while on TOUR."

So, if Barron is right, his quote is put into context.  Remember, at the time of the announcement, we wondered here why Barron did not outright admit to taking the drugs to gain an advantage.  His term "negative perception" really was a clue that Barron felt he had done nothing wrong.  His lawsuit explains his side of the story.