First, a disclaimer. All the narcotic knowledge in this article is based purely on assumption and guesswork.

What would be the point of playing a round of golf on ecstasy? You'd finish the round feeling happy, but you'd have nothing to be happy about having shot in the region of 125 with nine quintuple bogeys.

Cocaine would simply make you feel as though you were going to get round in 59, but the speedier swing would mean duck-hooking everything so severely you'd play like a dog chasing its tail.

Marijuana? Five hours to finish nine holes and a two hour munchie break at the halfway house before falling asleep on the 10th tee with a blissed out grin on your face. Even if you did finish you'd hand in a card scrawled with bad poetry and no scores.

Of course, van de Velde is not talking about this sort of recreational drug. And without question he is right to be, as he puts it, "suspicious until proven wrong". Be that as it may, my first port of call as a golf drugs tester would be Van de Velde's own doorstep: what else could have caused his 1999 Open meltdown than weed muffins?

The story never quite took off either. Ever since that old sage Gary Player brought it up, there has been almost unconditional support from all corners. If the spin doctors wanted this to make the front page they needed someone to say something along the lines of, "I love drugs". Nobody seemed interested though. Weird.

Without any scandal, or history of abuse, or even evidence on tour to raise significant suspicion, the whole business has the dull clang of formality about it. They will do the tests. Two or three players will test positive for something, which will turn out to be Red Bull or something as innocuous and we'll all get on with our lives. Bo-ring.

John Daly really needs to step up here and do something. The man who single-handedly proved that golf is not just about nerds in chequered cardigans needs to overdose on something quite strong, get cuffed for it, spend a few months inside and come out to win the US Open.

Think of the headlines: Daly Dose, Junkie John Jailed for Joints. It would be a welcome jab of dirt into a hitherto achingly clean affair. Come on John, take one for the team.