Shake it up for the good of the Games
Golf's mundane Olympic format falls flat; they've got time to figure it out before L.S. 2028
USA could have a pair of two-man teams with its four qualifiers Xander Schauffele, Scottie Scheffler, Wyndham Clark and Collin Morikawa (Ben Jared/PGA Tour/IGF)
The Men’s Olympic Golf Competition began on Thursday morning in France and if you tune into the early morning coverage this week you’ll see what you almost always see in professional golf.
That has been the big miss ever since golf was re-introduced to the Games in 2016.
A 60-player field competing over four days in a 72-hole stroke-play event to determine three individual medal winners doesn’t exactly inspire. It’s basically a PGA Tour signature event without all the signature players.
Now that is not to suggest that all of the countries who are represented from around the world should not be participating. They absolutely should. That’s the point. The Olympics are meant to expose the game to places where it is not top of mind.
The general consensus has been that having golf as an Olympic sport would lead to federations around the world funding potential players to groom them into Olympic-caliber golfers. That will take some time.
But that doesn’t mean we have to watch the same kind of golf we always watch.
To be fair, the International Golf Federation, which in essence sets the parameters for golf in the Olympics, has been stymied by the International Olympic Committee. That organization has insisted on a format similar to what is used to contest other big championships … i.e. the majors.
How hard has the IGF pushed? How stubborn is the IOC? Those are important questions, but golf is not guaranteed beyond the 2028 Games in Los Angeles and it seems prudent to explore some more creative ideas.
One has already been floated for 2028 at Riviera Country Club, where the golf events will be staged in Los Angeles — a 36-hole mixed-team event that would be played between the men’s and women’s competitions. That is an intriguing idea, but it has already been met with some pushback.
“It would be sticky to do two tournaments in a row and because of that, you may lose some guys,” said Xander Schauffele, the reigning Open and PGA champion who also won the gold medal in the Japan Olympics three years ago.
When told that it would be just 36 holes, Schauffele said: “It’s still more golf. Even if we were to play — it would be one day in between maybe and then start 36 holes, and then you get back with four days to go, three weeks of Playoffs in a row is a lot.”
Rory McIlroy was more enthusiastic and welcome to change: “When golf got back in the Olympics in 2016, I think some people were surprised that it was only individual stroke play, and they didn’t try to mix it up with some different formats.
“So you know, if that came to fruition in L.A. where there was a mixed-team event, or even another team event that was not mixed and Shane (Lowry) and I could play in it if we qualify, yeah, I’d love that. I think that would be a great format to bring to this competition.”
Rory McIlroy and Shane Lowry wish they could “team up” for Ireland (Brendan Moran/Sportsfile via Getty Images)
This is where golf’s leadership needs to step in to make changes work. Schauffele is correct that there is a lot of golf still ahead for tour professionals after the Olympics end. What would be wrong with making the individual events 54 holes each so as to fit 36 holes in between? Other Olympic sports — notably tennis and rugby 7s — utilize truncated versions of their games to fit better into the Olympics program.
And who’s to say the mixed-team participants must be drawn from the same pool of players who qualify for the individual competitions? While for many countries that might need to be the case to put forth its most competitive combination (or Min Woo and Minjee Lee might want to double dip as siblings for Australia), there’s no reason countries with deep benches like the United States, Great Britain, Korea, Japan, Spain, South Africa, Australia, etc., couldn’t send a different man and/or woman out in the mixed format. Do you think Americans Bryson DeChambeau and Ally Ewing, who just missed out on qualifying and desperately wanted to be in Paris, wouldn’t jump at the chance to represent their country any way they can in the Olympics?
Back in 2009, when there was a push to get golf in the Games, all involved said they’d accommodate the Olympics into their schedule. And then they never really did.