Tales Of Multiple Olympic Viewpoints

I know many find the debate over Olympic golf to be excruciating. And nearly everyone laments the format's inability to excite on multiple levels. However, the topic fascinates because it threatens to expose much about the state, attitude and place golf holds in the sporting spectrum.

As Randall Mell writes at GolfChannel.com, for every male that doesn't wany to be part of the 2016 Rio games, the battle to represent Korea is an entirely different matter. Even one causing players unimaginable stress. Take Swinging Skirts leader and current world No. 8 Soon Yeon Ryu, who has hired Cameron McCormick and is feeling the heat.

“The biggest thing is Korean media,” Ryu said. “If someone is going to make the Olympics, they're a great player. Then if somebody cannot make it, they're a really bad player.”

Alistair Tait and Jim McCabe argue over the defection of top male players Oosthuizen and Scott (a statement was issued by the IGF btw), and Tait questions the scheduling argument:

The problems of fitting an Olympic tournament into an already tight schedule have been discussed ad nauseam. Here’s the reality: For Scott and Oosthuizen, we’re talking about a maximum of 10 events in a 17-week period, from the Memorial Tournament through the Tour Championship. That run also includes three majors, a WGC and the the four-tournament FedEx Cup series.

I’m not suggesting that Scott and Oosthuizen compromise their major-championship preparations for the sake of the Olympics. We all understand that these tournaments define a player’s career. But don’t tell me it’s a hardship to play 10 tournaments in the space of 17 weeks. And that’s only if they make it all the way to the Tour Championship.

While I agree with McCabe that the format has ultimately let many down, I'm not sure the defecting golfers would have been drawn to a team format. Still, his point about the PGA Tour not changing its schedule and the inability of the five families to have set some profits aside to make the schedule work better is a good one. He writes...

You think the PGA Tour, R&A and USGA would shut down for three weeks every fourth summer to accommodate a proper Olympic golf tournament? Hey, they’re in, but not that in.

Adam Scott and Louis Oosthuizen have exercised prudent decisions by opting not to compete this summer in Rio de Janeiro. Direct your criticism not at them; instead, hope that the International Olympic Committee and golf officials devise a format for 2020 by which 40 two-man teams or 30 three-man teams truly make it about “playing for your country.”

Instead, we get this year’s equivalent of a fifth World Golf Championships event: a heavy-at-the-top, very-week-at-the-bottom 60-man field.

Meanwhile Brian Keogh's item on Paul McGinley's strong Olympic views is worth a look as he makes a profound point for the insular world of golf:

"No matter how successful a golfer may be and how many majors he may have won, the majority in the world’s population could not name golf’s four majors. But they know what a gold medal at the Olympics stands for," McGinley read.