The PGA Tour announced that starting next season it will be making massive improvements to its drug testing policy, which will include the addition of blood testing. In other news on tour, Phil Mickelson and his longtime caddie Jim McKay have parted ways, while Tiger Woods tweeted that he is getting professional help following his arrest.

What will the PGA Tour's improved drug testing look like?

Coinciding with the start of the PGA Tour's 2017-18 season this October, there will be a much stricter anti-doping policy. The tour will be increasing its list of banned substances so that it will be in line with the World Anti-Doping Association (WADA).

This means that asthma medications, allergy medications, anti-inflammatory medications, and pseudoephedrine over a certain level will be added to the banned "list three" categories.

The tour will also be adding blood testing for the first time, which will allow one to detect any use of human growth hormone (HGH). HGH has been banned but could not be tested via urine samples, which the tour says it will still use most of the time. The PGA Tour also announced that they will start reporting suspensions for recreational drugs and not just performance enhancing drugs.

Mickelson parts ways with longtime caddie

Yesterday, it was announced via a joint statement that Phil Mickelson and his longtime caddie Jim "Bones" Mackay had mutually agreed to part ways after an extremely successful 25-year partnership.

With Mackay as his caddie, Phil has won 41 of his 42 PGA Tour events, and all five of his majors, along with being on eleven consecutive Ryder Cup teams. For the rest of this season, Phil's brother Tim Mickelson will be taking over caddying duties.

Tiger Woods announces that he will be seeking help

Tiger Woods announced the other day that he is getting professional help to deal with the medications he uses for his back pain and sleep problems.

This announcement follows his May 29th arrest for DUI charges, which came a little more than one month after his most recent back surgery on April 19th.

Woods was found asleep in the early morning hours at the wheel of his car, saying that it was caused by an "unexpected reaction" that he had to a prescription medication. Woods said that alcohol was not involved and he was found to have none in his system. His arraignment was originally scheduled for July 5th, but has been pushed back to August 9th.
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