Greg Norman, winner of 91 tournaments worldwide, remembers a time when panic attacks on the elite golf circuit were often alleviated with the illicit use of a common heart and blood pressure medicine, the beta blocker.

“In my day, lots of guys were on beta blockers,” Norman, 57, said in an interview at the P.G.A. Championship in August. “It wasn’t openly acknowledged, but it was obvious to the rest of us. A guy’s personality would change. In practice rounds or friendly matches, we’d see the real guy under stress. Then in competition, he was like a different, calmer person. Those guys were trying to take the nerves out of the game. But nerves are very much a part of the game.”

Norman was far from the only one with the tacit understanding that beta blockers, also prescribed for stage fright, were part of big-time golf. So in 2008, when the PGA and L.P.G.A. Tours were establishing their antidoping programs, beta blockers were included on the banned substance lists.

The little pill that inadvertently, or not so inadvertently, soothes the jitters and helps settle the bets in a recreational weekend match — nearly one in three Americans have high blood pressure, so it might be resolving a lot of $5 wagers — is strictly policed when the PGA Tour paydays top $1 million.