Drug testing ruled out at 2008 British golf Open

Golf's ruling body, the Royal and Ancient Club, has decided against introducing drug tests for players at July's Open at Royal Birkdale because qualifying for the event was already underway.

Following a ground-breaking anti-doping policy adopted by the professional game late last year testing on the US and European tours has been scheduled to start in July.

That would have made the British Open the first of the four majors to adopt the new directives.

But R & A chief executive Peter Dawson, one of the driving forces behind the introduction of drug-testing in the sport, said that it would not be suitable to implement the tests this year saying that the Open's global qualifying system was the main reason.

Events have already taken place in Asia, South Africa and Australia and the players at those events have not had the same education programme open to those in Europe and America.

"We played a leading role in the development of a policy of which we are very proud," said Dawson.

"But it is very important that players understand what it is about and given that quite a number of players do not play on the PGA or European Tours we decided that it will not start at the Open this year.

"But we very much hope and intend to start next year. If the Open was in October we would probably be drug-testing this year."

This year's open takes place at Royal Birkdale north of Liverpool from July 17-20.