Can PGA Tour Players Smoke? Cigarettes, Dip, Weed, and Club Etiquette (2026)

Yes, PGA Tour players can smoke cigarettes and cigars during a round. The Tour handbook does not ban it on the course. It does ban smoking in the locker room and in player/family dining, and it bans tobacco and marijuana sponsorships. Cannabis with THC is a different story: that sits on the anti-doping list, not the smoking-etiquette list.

The old version of this article got the marijuana half wrong. “The PGA Tour does not have a policy against marijuana” is false. THC is treated as a drug of abuse under the Tour’s anti-doping program, which tracks the WADA prohibited list for cannabinoids in-competition. CBD is allowed. Lighting a joint on the 13th tee is not a grey area.

• Cigarettes, cigars, dip: not banned during play. The 2024 handbook, as Golf Monthly reported, only calls out locker rooms and player dining.
• Be discreet anyway. TV does not linger on it. Playing partners and volunteers still have lungs. Butts go in a pocket or a cart tray, never a green.
• No tobacco or cannabis sponsors. Player Endorsement Policy has banned tobacco companies, and since March 1, 2019 cigars, pipe tobacco, smokeless, e-cigs, vapes, and marijuana brands.
• THC: prohibited in-competition. The Tour’s 2026 anti-doping program still treats cannabinoids as drugs of abuse (separate disciplinary track from steroids, still a positive). CBD is exempt. State-legal weed does not override a Tour test. See our PGA drug testing explainer.
• Who you still see smoking: John Daly is the mascot. On other tours, Charley Hull (LPGA) and the occasional DP World / Open Championship sighting. Dip is more common on the PGA Tour than a lit cigarette.
• Your muni is not the Tour. Club policy, fire danger, and your foursome beat any Tour precedent.

What the handbook actually says

The player handbook is a small-print novel. Smoking is not in the “you will be fined for this on the tee” chapter. It shows up in two places:

1. Facility rules: no smoking in the locker room or player/family dining. That is a venue-and-image rule, not a swing rule.
2. Endorsements: you cannot be the face of a tobacco or marijuana company. Private use of those products is a different sentence from wearing a Camel patch.

There is no line that says “no cigarettes on the golf course.” John Daly has smoked through majors for three decades. In December 2025 he was still lighting up at the PNC Championship without a penalty — because there is nothing to penalize. He has also talked publicly about trying to quit after a bladder-cancer diagnosis. That is health, not a rules change.

Cigarettes vs cigars vs dip vs vapes

Cigarettes are rare on the PGA Tour now because most of the field is under 35 and grew up after indoor smoking bans. Cigars still appear, usually after the round or on a slow Thursday with no camera in the fairway. Dip and pouches are the quiet majority among the players who still use nicotine — you will not see it on the broadcast, which is the point.

E-cigs and vapes sit in the endorsement ban with smokeless tobacco. Using one on the tee is not listed as a rules violation. Blowing a cloud into someone’s backswing is still a great way to not get invited back to a pro-am.

Alcohol is, ironically, tighter. The Tour has long been more allergic to a beer in the fairway on camera than a cigarette. That split exists because of TV and because alcohol is a performance and liability issue in a way a nicotine hit is not. Do not use Tour smoking as a permission slip to drink your way around a member-guest.

Weed: the part people get backwards

WADA still lists natural and synthetic cannabinoids as in-competition prohibited substances. THC is the named substance of abuse. CBD is the exception, and has been since 2019. The PGA Tour’s 2026 anti-doping program tracks that list and then handles “drugs of abuse” (cannabinoids, some narcotics) on a separate track from the steroid chapter — fines, shorter discretionary bans — but it is still a program you can fail.

Robert Garrigus’s old marijuana suspension is the history lesson. “It’s legal in California” is not a Tour defense, the same way it is not an Olympic defense. If you are a Monday qualifier with a medical card, you still do not want a test the week you finally get in the field. For the amateur reading this: your club championship is not WADA, but arriving high and cart-path-only because you cannot feel your feet is still a pace-of-play problem. Pace of play etiquette applies either way.

Smoking on a regular golf course (you, not Rory)

Tour permission is irrelevant if the club printed a no-smoking policy on the scorecard. Plenty of municipal courses in the U.S. ban smoking on tees and greens, or everywhere. California, Australia, and a lot of UK clubs are stricter than Florida. Ask in the shop. Then:

• Ask the group. If anyone is pregnant, asthmatic, or just hates it, you ride a different cart or you do not light it. Linking that to a pregnancy-golf article in the old version of this post was a stretch; the point is basic manners.
• Smoke downwind of the putting player. Never on the green. Ash in a cart tray or a personal ashtray, not the bunker face.
• Butts are litter. Greenkeeper will not pick up your Marlboro. Pocket it.
• Fire. Dry, windy inland courses in late summer are a hard no. One ember in native grass is how you make the evening news.
• Lighter: a torch in the wind, then it goes back in the bag. Matches on a tee box is how you litter twice.

Why you almost never see it on TV

Two reasons, neither of them a secret rule. Directors cut away from it because the Tour sells a family product and a health-conscious sponsor list. Players also hide it because they know how it looks in a still photo next to a 15-year-old with a driver. Daly is the exception because Daly’s brand is the exception. Everyone else who still uses nicotine has switched to something you cannot see of a tower camera.

That is also why “I saw a Reddit thread that Koepka dips” is not a rules citation. Dip happens. It is not in the Conditions of Competition. It is also not a reason to flick a spit bottle onto a collar.

FAQs

Can PGA Tour players smoke cigarettes during a tournament round?

Yes. There is no on-course ban in the handbook. Locker room and player dining are no-smoking. Do not expect a close-up of it on NBC.

Can they smoke weed?

Not if they want to stay inside the anti-doping policy. THC is prohibited in-competition. CBD is allowed. A state medical card does not write you a TUE for getting high on Thursday of a Tour event.

Is chewing tobacco allowed?

Yes, in the same way cigarettes are: not banned on the course, banned as a sponsor category, frowned on in player dining. Discreet is the operating word.

Can I smoke at my local course because the Tour allows it?

Only if the course allows it. Club policy, local fire rules, and your playing partners outrank anything that happens at Harbour Town. Put the butt in your pocket either way.

Did John Daly ever get fined for smoking?

Not for the cigarette itself. He has been fined for plenty else. Smoking at the PNC Championship in 2025 was still legal under Tour rules. His later comments about quitting are about cancer risk, which is a better reason than a rules sheet.