Brad Fritsch has been suspended for three months by the PGA Tour after self-reporting the use of a banned substance, dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA). Fritsch opened up about the events that led to the suspension in a Facebook post on Monday evening.
The day that the Canadian journeyman failed to advance through the second stage of Web.com tour Q-School (and just two days after his 40th birthday) Fritsch contacted a friend who also operates a weight loss program. Fritsch was the heaviest he’d ever been and was hoping to keep up with his kids, who were “getting really fast.” As he got into golf’s offseason, he began the low-calorie program. Fritsch had made 10 cuts in 18 PGA Tour starts in 2017 but failed to record a top-25 and ultimately finished too far down the money list to secure status for 2018.
Fritsch began the program, which consisted of highly disciplined eating and several supplements including a spray called “BioSom.” The spray gave one of Fritsch’s friends pause.
“Hey, it’s not that spray that got Vijay in trouble, right?” the friend texted Fritsch. Singh was famously suspended (and later un-suspended) for a banned substance within ‘deer antler spray’ in 2013.
“It felt like my heart sank into my stomach,” wrote Fritsch, who has long been a proponent of transparency in the Tour’s historically secretive Anti-Doping program. He had “never considered” that he would one day violate the policy. “The only thing I would ever test positive for is excessive Chik Fil A,” he wrote.
With his desire for transparency in mind, Fritsch self-reported the potential violation to a Tour official and found that the spray did in fact contain a substance, dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA), that is on the Tour’s banned list.
“How could I sit there all those times and say ‘if it happens, it’s the truth, and if it’s the truth, get it out there,’ and when it was my turn, just lie about it?” Fritsch wrote. “I couldn’t. It’s not who I am. I believe in the program and if I’m to be suspended, then so be it.”
As a result, Fritsch received the three-month suspension retroactive to Nov. 30.
The Tour confirmed Fritsch’s account.
“Mr. Fritsch self-reported this information after discovering that an ingredient in a supplement that he was taking was on the prohibited list,” read the statement.
“I’m embarrassed that I didn’t pay attention to the details,” Fritsch said.
Fritsch ultimately never played a competitive round while using the substance – and he’s lost 28 pounds (“so I’ve got that going for me,” he wrote).
He is eligible to return to competitive play Feb. 28. You can read the complete post below.
