It's not so much Tiger love, but the just abject Tiger hate... When Tiger was juicing, right or wrong, it was not banned by the PGA...they told him 2 years before they finally banned it, and said they wanted to do it quietly with zero issues like baseball had when they finally banned the juice, then retroactively went after players (stupid move, btw).
Tiger hate is just like LeBron hate, or soccer hate, or Brady/Pats hate... the haters go out of their way to come up with the flimsiest threads of truth and blow it up to be the most hideous thing since Dr. Frankenstien created his monster. But we are all guilty of it. It does not, however, diminish a thing from what Tiger accomplished on the course. Did the HGH help him hit it farther, or more accurately? No way to tell, but we know it helped him recover faster, but it was also available to every other player on tour, as it was retroactively included in the PGA's testing from 2008, which was a joke to everyone on tour. But HGH specifically is not mentioned. Tiger was actually a proponent of more stringent testing than what the PGA put forward, but if you believe that Tiger stopped taking HGH in or around 2008, when testing began (again, no public test information to say whether Tiger was ever tested), he had his marital/private troubles starting in 2009, and golf injuries starting in 2011.
To me, it was just stupid of Tiger to take HGH as long-term effects, or having to come off of it, and how the body would respond, just weren't known back then. Now we know that stopping HGH causes big issues (and read the fine print on any testosterone you guys may be taking...and ween off of it slowly) and especially stopping it cold turkey can have a major effect on your body chemistry and ability of your body to produce the right balance of hormones during injuries, or to help prevent injuries when your body is being stressed. As hard as Tiger worked on his swing and body, the stopping of the HGH was a big issue for him. But, at the time, it was not illegal or against PGA or World Golf rules.
I say the same thing about baseball...MLB was too late, and too stupid to have testing built in from the 1980s when the Eastern Bloc Olympic athletes were heavily using and being on the forefront of PEDs. They, and every other governing sport had blinders on that their athletes wouldn't find ways to enhance performance. Baseball doubled down by one day announcing a ban and then retroactively targeting players. By then it was too late. The PGA was the same...in fact, before they put any testing in place in 2008, Tim finchem was on record not but a few months before saying they PGA didn't need to test, as it was stupid for any PGA member to do banned or illegal drugs... Didn't stop DJ and Andrew Kim from partying from dusk til dawn on Bolivian marching powder. But DJ's "suspension" and Andrew Kim's ban from the PGA sure stopped a lot of it.
