The Quadrennial Olympic Conundrum
Every four years golf presents the world a 72-hole individual stroke play format shaped by strange forces and tired thinking.
Over a decade since receiving a Games membership card, Olympic golf turns up in Versailles with its ho-hum 72-hole stroke play sporting fields filled out by imperfect world rankings systems. Golf’s first two iterations since returning to the Games have been met with tepid interest and player commitment issues. As of now, golf is now only guaranteed to do this one more time in 2028 at Riviera despite a vast effort to get the sport into the Games.
It didn’t have to be this mediocre and muddled.
There are emerging plans to jam two days of a mixed competition in between the next men’s and women’s stroke play. Imaginative, it is not.
I know, I know. Male and female medal winners will again be produced outside of Paris. There may even be another Slovakian surprise to prematurely age executives who shaped the format give stars the best shot at medaling while getting random golf-light countries a shot to see players participate. However, even with outstanding male and female gold medalists in the first two iterations, Olympic golf remains far down the list of cherished opportunities in the sport. And it’s all a bit shameful at this point given the efforts to “grow the game” at the expense of an Olympic-worthy format and even major championship scheduling.
Now that the game has grown, it should be pretty obvious the Olympics played little part in the recreational game’s recent expansion. There are undoubtedly success stories of increased funding for national teams and a general sense of increased worldwide appreciation for what golfers do. Several players taking ceremonial tours of the Olympic Village or daring to stay there (you go Viktor Hovland!) have reported how they were unexpectedly recognized by other athletes wanting to talk shop. That’s cool for them and for the sport.
But with majors the “gold standard” more than ever—as players like Jon Rahm and Rory McIlroy reiterated this week—Olympic golf will never be the pinnacle of the sport. Nor is this really necessary unless you’re at a stale cocktail party schmoozing IOC yukity yucks who could be tempted to drop golf in lieu of their next Youth Desperation Syndrome play.
The path to a better golf presence in the Games faces a frustrating internal hurdle: the golf powerbrokers charged with selling the IOC on improvements are beholden to a PGA Tour now run by players who only seem happy with stroke play played in greater Jupiter or Scottsdale. These anti-worldbeaters have made clear that stepping outside the United States for something other than The Open poses a giant life inconvenience, even as athletes in virtually every other sport cherish a chance to shine in something global and bigger than themselves.
Golf’s Olympic effort has been spearheaded by the International Golf Federation, an amalgamation of leading organizations “delivery partners” with a team based in Lausanne and heavily influenced by the PGA Tour. The IGF has done its part in managing IOC silliness while somehow getting a superb venue built in Rio under trying circumstances. The course is one of the few venues still going strong after those Games.
But the IGF has also lived in fear of the IOC’s weird obsession with Olympic Village bed space despite a tiny percentage of the 120 golf participants and coaches lodging at the Olympic Village. The IGF seems unable to admit that golf’s precious participants are spoiled loners who, stuck playing at venues far from the Village and not interested in sharing a room for the week, take a pass. Golfers have also been wise to host committee antics treating ideal sleep conditions with disdain. Most of the golfers prefer to rent a home or hotel room to get a good night’s rest. And even with the 2028 Village just five miles up Sunset Boulevard at UCLA, expect most of the field to stay in homes or hotels.
The IGF also obsesses about IOC’s guidance recommending a reliance on a format similar to what’s used for deciding other significant worldwide championships. This, even though most championships are dictated by live television demands at the expense of golf’s potential creative format flexibility.
The IOC has never demanded that Olympic golf tournament test skills in line with the Faster, Higher, Stronger motto of the Games. If they had, Long Drive would be an Olympic sport. The IGF has never even floated an Olympics-style format using match play, foursomes or pool play found in other sports. Worst of all, the bigwigs have yet to figure out how to create a team component capturing the best of the Cup events by eliciting the drama, patriotism and passion golf is capable of showcasing on a worldwide stage.
Making the state of play even more bizarre: the individual stroke play format and OWGR-based system was built almost entirely around trying to ensure Tiger Woods could play in the 2016 Games. Now that his best days are behind him without an appearance, it’s time to go all in on a format overhaul.
And keep in mind another misconception: the IOC has always been way less concerned with giving out more medals if golf were to add competitions within the competition. It’s the dreaded bed inventory that keeps ‘em up at night.
The IGF finally appears ready to add something to complement the 72-hole individual stroke play, belatedly acknowledging the mixed-gender competitions that have become one of the more interesting evolutionary elements of recent Games. (With apologies to break dancing and the looming specter of e-sports.)
“I feel like there's a lot of missed opportunities, also, in the format,” Mexico’s Abraham Ancer said Tuesday at Le Golf Nationale. “I think it could be so much cooler having more options for medals team-wise. You can do so many things that it would bring so much excitement. You can do match play. You can do so many things that it will just elevate, I think, the format we only get to do this four times a year, every four years if we're lucky.”
The original idea of leaning on the World Golf Ranking has exposed the IGF’s reticence to update qualifying after LIV players broke off and PGA Tour events seem unduly emphasized in points allocations. The latter issue was highlighted by the 2024 success enjoyed by DP World Tour players when ten of them gained access to the American circuit. One of those players, Matthieu Pavon of France, could be the home country hero story this week. But a glaring absence of the current U.S. Open champion and PGA runner-up, Bryson DeChambeau, only highlights IGF incompetence when juxtaposed with tennis’ Olympic effort to build in qualifying spots should there be a surprise major champion who otherwise would not have qualified.
The ranking’s imperfections aside, it’s still better than letting national Olympic committees do the selecting after the recent Joost Luiten debacle. The IGF’s late statement supporting Luiten’s bid hardly gave the impression of an organization dialed in to one of its few essential tasks: nurturing the Olympic golf movement and ensuring the competition is devoid of needless controversy. But when your president is on the pro-am circuit prepping for her annual major—the vaunted American Century in Lake Tahoe where they used to have holes sponsored by porn companies—leadership seems pretty clearly checked out.
If Annika Sorenstam was more than an absentee head of the IGF, the sport might be a bit more advanced in efforts to come up with a creative Olympic format. It’s all so odd since she’s an Olympics fan who witnessed the impact of Henrik Stenson’s silver medal win for Sweden. Instead of hobnobbing with Charles Barkley and Larry the Cable Guy, she should be ginning up interest in something less sluggish than four rounds of individual stroke play.
This week, golf’s participants are once again taking in other competitions and noticing how Olympic golf lacks the daily intensity and once-every-four-years regalness of other sports.
“Golf, it's an interesting game,” Open Champion Xander Schauffele said Tuesday. “You're not sprinting across the finish line where we're sort of playing four days and it's a little bit longer of a race.”
There is a place in the Olympics for the kind of condensed, rapid-fire jousting we know is possible by borrowing the best of the Ryder, Walker, Curtis or Presidents Cup, then dividing by two, and creating something unique to the Games. Especially since golf in the Olympics is unmoored from the weekly worries about a match ending at 15 green and forcing a network to fill 35 minutes all to give the affiliates a proper lead-in to the weekend local newscast.
“Watching the tennis and watching the Rugby Sevens, it's kind of condensed,” said Min Woo Lee when asked this week about adding two more rounds of mixed stroke play. “So I think that might have to be a part of golf.”
In the first two Games since golf returned, the heavily watched national television coverage has popped in at the very end of day four for men’s and women’s stroke play. In Rio this was an incredible triumph for golf to get a whopping 90 minutes of NBC time. Justin Rose, Henrik Stenson and Matt Kuchar deserve credit for delivering a fun finish worth showing. Barring some wild shootout between Schauffele, Scheffler, Rahm and McIlroy, it’s hard to see so much network love in 2024.
“When golf got back in the Olympics in 2016, I think some people were surprised that it was only individual stroke play,” said Rory McIlroy after rolling into Paris following a tune-up round over the Old Course. “And they didn't try to mix it up with some different formats.”
McIlroy did some out-loud dreaming that the IGF hopefully noted.
“If that came to fruition in L.A. where there was a mixed-team event, or even -- and another team event that was not mixed and Shane [Lowry] and I could play in it if we qualify, yeah, I'd love that,” he said. “I think that would be a great format to bring to this competition.”
Jon Rahm, another player who can envision a tournament world beyond 72-holes, agrees.
“I would love to actually, as a partner or somehow, whether as a combined sport or us playing together, to be able to represent Spain,” Rahm said in his pre-Olympic press conference alongside countryman David Puig. “That would be extremely nice to share the stage with another player, to do something different, to maybe [not do] what we do every other day, right?”
Countless columns have been written suggesting formats the IGF has typically ignored while blaming the IOC for the stagnant approach. Players have voiced their disdain for the format fairly consistently, with some more forceful in their views after taking in other niche Olympic sports and realizing what a giant time waste of a day 18-holes feels like compared to lively Olympic-style pool play. For too long the IGF’s “delivery partners” have dug in at the expense of a creative solution and only now are crystalizing a plan to jam a couple of mixed-team competition days at Riviera.