I don't understand why they couldn't have tried to make it a team event, rather than individual stroke play.
So if I'm in 20th place at a normal Tour event, I know I can shoot 65 on Sunday and jump up the leaderboard. I probably won't win, but I get a pretty good paycheck.
In the Olympics, they're basically only "paying out" three spots. Anyone outside the top-10 probably has no chance at a medal.
A team match play format would have been much more enjoyable.
I think golf should be an olympic sport because it's a truly international sport that doesn't rely on judging....
+1
But I think a team event would make it more country relevant. THere are so many choices for making the Olympics unique and fun but instead they just set it up like a PGA Championship. There's plenty of invite only golf tournaments already.
A team event could exist alongside or in addition to an individual event easily.
They also could consider only inviting amateurs
They also could only invite x number from y number of countries and no one else...you want in you have to qualify based on your national olympic committee's standards and not based on your world ranking
They didn't do any of that...which I think was the real mistake...golf = good...same golf we got 2 weeks before = bad
That's why it's not a team event.
Especially if each country was limited to 3 or 4 players. A few in particular that come to mind for future are Australia, South Africa, Great Britain, Sweden, Spain. There are a LOT of great international players in golf and there's no reason why a team event couldn't be easily integrated into what they had this year.
Men's Basketball
Women's Basketball
Women's Gymnastics
Probably some others that we don't dominate like Table Tennis
The fact that the USA would probably win a team gold medal in golf is no reason not to have the event. There's several team events that are more one-sided.
I remember I had those teams on my NHL99 video game
My point was that American golfers haven't exactly excelled in team match play formats as of late.
The European teams may not be as strong when they're divided up by country, but I don't think it's a foregone conclusion that the US would dominate a team format.
matches became so one-sided that the format was changed.
Depending on the size of the team (I'd advocate for fewer than the big team events in golf) several countries could field top talent and battle it out for 1 medal each.
If 3 Americans win the only 3 medals being awarded that won't go over well.
The fact that the US could only have 4 players automatically makes the field weaker.
Why not run it like a college event? Have 5 players from each country and have them play a 54-hole stroke play qualifier. You can give out medals to the top-3 individuals in stroke play and then have the top 4 or 8 teams make match play and give out team gold.
It'd be a ton of fun.
It doesn't need to be an Olympic sport.
Because of the Olympics, two of the majors - British Open and PGA had to be compressed to within 3 weeks. After the Olympics, the Ryder Cup starts at the end of September. That's cramming a lot of majors and major events into a very tight schedule.
Add the cost for building a new golf course. Then you add the arbitrary cut-off date for determining the teams - right before the British Open instead of after it - where a guy like Mickelson would have made the team and wanted to go - and it appears, like usual, the IOC has their head up their ass.
I won't even get into what I think about the IOC and how they are a corrupt body completely ruining the Olympics
So
If so then it's in danger. If not, then it will depend much more on how 2020 goes than how this complete clusterfuck of an olympics goes.
One thing golf has going for it is a LOT of tv content for the most attractive tv audiences.
games.