Olympic golf has been in an awkward position since the sport was reintroduced to the Summer Games in 2016.
The first two editions were moderately successful but lacked the juice of a big event. In 2016, the Zika virus was used as justification for several top men’s players to skip the tournament. Five years later, there were missing players due to COVID-19.
Now we have a clean slate for the 2024 Games in Paris as the men’s and women’s tournaments will be held at Le Golf National, host of the 2018 Ryder Cup. The top players figure to show up with few exceptions.
And, still, golf in the Olympics doesn’t have the same gravitas as other top events on the calendar. The women’s game has embraced it more than the men have but we’ve yet to see Olympic golf flourish into its full potential on either side.
Some of that will take time. No golfer grew up dreaming about being in the Olympics—they dreamed of winning majors. It takes time for history to build.
However, there is more to it than that. There is a lot within the Olympic golf’s control that could push it forward.
Here are two key ways Olympic golf can become more relevant.
Change To A “College Golf” Style Format
By far the biggest disappointment of Olympic golf is the format.
Currently, there is only an individual competition. The top three individuals get medals after 72 holes of stroke play.
As is the case for many Olympic sports, golf should have individual and team medals.
I would advocate for the top 10 golf countries on both the men’s and women’s sides to send three competitors apiece. Each round, the top two scores count toward the team total. Now we have real competition between countries for the team title.
This is along the same lines as college golf where teams bring five players with the top four scores counting each round.
If this format was in place this year, the countries on the men’s side would likely be the United States, Sweden, Ireland, Spain, England, Japan, Canada, Australia, South Africa and South Korea.
It would still be 72 holes of stroke play—a standard in championship golf—but a team component is added.
There can be additional countries represented beyond those 30 players. Add another 20 players—or however many you want—who aren’t from the countries on the top 10 teams.
That would leave us with 50 players which is less than what we have now. I wouldn’t mind there being slightly more. Going beyond that point, the field quality gets too diluted.
We are already seeing that as a problem in the first two editions. Some countries are sending two players well outside the top 100 in the world.
Leave Qualification To The Countries
You may have heard that two-time U.S. Open champion Bryson DeChambeau is not playing in the Olympics. He didn’t qualify, mainly because he plays on LIV, a league which doesn’t receive Official World Golf Ranking points.
The OWGR clearly shouldn’t be used for an event like this. We’re not even talking about major qualification. The OWGR is run by the majors so it’s a different topic in a lot of ways. We’re talking about identifying the best golfers from each country. That’s it.
DeChambeau is one of the best four Americans. He is arguably one of the best two Americans. He should be there and the game is worse off because he is not.
There are seven LIV players in the Olympics (Jon Rahm, David Puig, Joaquín Niemann, Mito Pereira, Carlos Ortiz, Abraham Ancer and Adrian Meronk) but there are other LIV players who should be there but didn’t qualify.
Tyrrell Hatton should be representing England. Louis Oosthuizen should be representing South Africa.
These players made a choice so I don’t feel bad for them. Still, they would have qualified without the OWGR being used as the qualification system.
The Olympics should feature the best players from the top countries no matter what. This has nothing to do with the PGA Tour, LIV or the majors. Just get the top players competing against each other.
Each country’s golf association and/or governing body should choose their best players. The USGA and R&A choose golfers for the Walker Cup and other competitions. Countries send golfers for the World Amateur Team Championship. It’s a normal practice.
Identify the top 10 countries based on a points system considering overall performance in the two years leading up the Olympics. The Olympics can pick the top 10 countries and then each country sends their top three men and/or women. The individual countries can set up their own qualifying system if they want.
Pick another 20 countries and have everyone else send their best player to compete as individuals.
Yes, there will be some players at the bottom of the board who won’t contend—but it’s helpful to grow the sport in certain countries where golf is not developed.
Here is what the team competition could look like under this format:
United States (Scottie Scheffler, Bryson DeChambeau, Xander Schauffele) England (Tommy Fleewood, Tyrrell Hatton, Matt Fitzpatrick) Ireland (Rory McIlroy, Shane Lowry, Seamus Power) Canada (Corey Conners, Taylor Pendrith, Adam Hadwin) South Korea (Tom Kim, Sungjae Im, Si Woo Kim) Spain (Jon Rahm, David Puig, Sergio Garcia) South Africa (Christiaan Bezuidenhout, Louis Oosthuizen, Dean Burmester) Sweden (Ludvig Åberg, Alex Noren, Sebastian Soderberg) Australia (Cameron Smith, Jason Day, Adam Scott) Japan (Hideki Matsuyama, Keita Nakajima, Ryo Hisatsune)Almost all of these players are within the top 50 of the Data Golf rankings. We could argue about some of the teams and countries represented but it would be phenomenal to have a team competition with these 10 countries.
And then here are the next 20 individuals who would be competing:
Viktor Hovland (Norway) Joaquín Niemann (Chile) Sepp Straka (Austria) Min Woo Lee (New Zealand) Carlos Ortiz (Mexico) Stephan Jaeger (Germany) Thomas Detry (Belgium) Matthieu Pavon (France) Robert MacIntyre (Scotland) Thorbjorn Olesen (Denmark) Adrian Meronk (Poland) Emiliano Grillo (Argentina) Sebastian Munoz (Colombia) Kevin Yu (Chinese Taipei) Anirban Lahiri (India) Jhonattan Vegas (Venezuela) Guido Migliozzi (Italy) Sami Valimaki (Finland) Joost Luiten (Netherlands) Scott Vincent (Zimbabwe)There are some strong players on this list. Several of these players could easily win a medal as individuals.
Why Golf Should Stay An Olympic Sport
While Olympic golf is probably not going to rise to major championship status any time soon, I do think there is hope it can become a well-regarded tournament.
The 2028 Summer Games are in Los Angeles with the golf portion taking place at Riviera Country Club, host of the Genesis Invitational. That will be the best course Olympic golf has seen and getting to play in prime time on U.S. soil will be a huge boost for the event.
I’m hopeful there are a couple of tweaks to the format and qualifying by then.
I know a lot of people advocate for amateur golfers to compete in the Olympics but I don’t think that would do much for the sport. Look at baseball where no major league players can compete in the Olympics. Does anyone care? If you aren’t going to have the best compete, maybe it’s not worth having the sport in the Olympics at all.
I do think golf should have a place in the Olympics. It’s not necessarily just for fans. Not every event has to be about maximizing entertainment.
We’re talking about growing the game in places like Southeast Asia or South America. Other countries are putting in resources to develop talent so they can compete.
The cumulative effect of that matters. It’s helping bolster the game around the world.
And there is something special about this type of world stage. Consider that, in 2016, final-round coverage of the men’s Olympic golf tournament had 8.8 million viewers during the 90-minute window in which coverage aired on both NBC and Golf Channel. That’s a big number for golf. This is a stage that can attract attention for the sport.
In short, Olympic golf doesn’t feel that far away from greater relevance.
Get the best players there and get the top countries competing against each other as teams.
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