[dropcap type=”circle”]I[/dropcap]t’s more important than the majors. It’s a glorified exhibition. It’s made an unseemly mess of the golf calendar with so many events now crammed together. It’s going to make a vital contribution to the growth of the game worldwide.
Just some of the widely contrasting views you’ll hear if you canvas players and administrators about the return of golf to the Olympics this summer for the first time since 1904.
This is proving a subject that divides opinion every bit as much as asking members of the Tory party about the EU referendum.
Take Jordan Spieth and Adam Scott, for example. The best player in the world last year and the man who came scorching out of the blocks at the start of this campaign.
Talk to Spieth and you come away enthusiastic about the Olympic project. “I’m going to prepare for it in exactly the same way that I prepare for the four majors,” said the Texan. “I think the importance of an Olympic gold medal is only going to grow in time. I think if I were lucky enough to win one, then in 20 years when I look back on my career I’m sure I will reflect and think it among the most accomplished things I have achieved.”
So far so good. Who couldn’t get intrigued about the prospect listening to Spieth’s rousing words? Then you turn to the eloquent Scott, the gentleman Aussie who is about as far from a rebel figure as you’ll find.
“I’m planning my schedule around playing the majors as best I can, and if I can fit the Olympics into that then it might be a bit of fun,” he said. “But if not, I’m not going to miss it. An Olympic medal is not going to define my career because it’s nothing I’ve ever aspired to do. It’s all about the four majors, not going to play an exhibition event in the middle of the majors season. I don’t think other athletes in their sport would do that. Golf doesn’t need to be in the Olympics.”
The thing about this hot topic is you can see both points of view. You look at the way tennis has embraced the Olympics over the past 20 years, and the value Andy Murray places on the gold medal he won in 2012, and why wouldn’t golf make the same journey?
Then you look at the schedule this summer and what a mess the Olympics has made of it. There is just a one week gap between The Open and the USPGA Championship, which will be held for the first time in July. Three of the majors will be crammed into a seven week timeframe, which is plainly ridiculous, and then there is just a one week gap before Rio in August.
Thereafter the top players are all expected on duty for the four tournaments that comprise the FedEx Cup in America, and right on the back of that finishing we have the Ryder Cup at the end of September.
As Rory McIlroy said, wryly: “I think you are going to find October will be a very quiet month for the top players.”
One thing fuelling the fire in the apathy camp is the truly lacklustre format and a qualification system that is transparently unfair. Sixty players will be taking part in each of the men’s and women’s tournaments over 72 holes, with no team element, and just medals awarded to the top three finishers.
Why on earth did they not have, say, 36 holes of stroke play, with the top eight going forward to match play, just to try something different? Why not involve the men and women in a foursomes or four balls event? In the tennis tournament there is great excitement at the idea of Roger Federer and Martina Hingis combining their talents for Switzerland. Wouldn’t it have been nice to see Charley Hull and Justin Rose raise the banner for Team GB?
And how about this for inequity? Each country can send two players but that number will be raised to a maximum of four if they have that many representatives in the world’s top 15. At the time of writing that means Patrick Reed, ranked tenth in the world but the fifth leading American, will not be going to the Games but the unknown Adilson da Silva, ranked 365th, will because he is the second best player from the host nation.
Clearly, it’s not just because he’s from Brazil that this is plainly nuts.
So that’s the no argument. Let’s hear more from why it’s right that golf should be in the Olympics. Let’s talk to the gifted Indian Anirban Lahiri, a three-time winner on the European Tour who can’t wait to line up for his country.
“I think it is especially exciting for the countries that are not particularly interested in the sport,” he said. “For countries in Asia, like Thailand, India and Korea, it is a huge deal. Golf is not followed that much, it’s nothing like the way the game is followed in America and the UK. But everyone follows the Olympics, so think of the exposure the game will get in those parts of the world.”
A similar argument can be put forward for the women’s game, which will surely benefit as well from the increased publicity, and the chance for the neglected top members of the fairer sex to show they can really play.
Earlier this year I asked one of the leading Americans Paula Creamer whether she’d prefer a gold medal or a major, and the former US Open Champion never hesitated for a second.
“A gold medal every time,” she said. “The chance to win a medal for your country, I don’t think it gets better than that. Maybe it’s because I was seriously into gymnastics growing up and the importance the Olympics holds in that sport that I hold that view, but I don’t think so. I just think it would be the greatest achievement imaginable for a sportsmen to be representing your nation and win a gold medal at your chosen sport.”
There you have it, then. Persuasive reasons as to why it’s great that golf is back in the Olympics – and equally lucid ones as to why it would have been better not to have bothered.
One thing’s for sure: just like the EU referendum, you’ll be hearing lots from both camps in the months ahead.
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