One of the side-stories to come out of the convening of the game's great and good for the 137th Open Championship has been that the two major governing bodies of the sport - the Royal and Ancient, and the US Golf Association - have finally found a way to bury the last of their differences, and golf now has a fledgling single governing body, christened the IGF (International Golf Federation).

It's about time - the two rules committees have effectively respected each others' proposed rules changes since the early 1980s (back then, there were still significant arguments over here and over there about the rules, notably about what equipment was permissible and what size ball could be used in competition, and also little quirks about what players could or couldn't do when in, or near, hazards, the R&A preferring their hardline "play the ball as it lies" dogma while the Americans favoured dropping the ball wherever permissible).

The existence of a single governing body for a sport is one of the IOC's pre-requisites for a sport to be included at the Olympic Games, along with factors like the number of countries where the sport is played to an internationally competitive level. As something like 40 different countries are represented by the top 100 players in the world (men and women), golf has long qualified on the latter count, and is by far the biggest sport not to be in the Games. This development means golf can now bid to be a demonstration sport in 2012 (possibly at Wentworth?) and a full medal event in 2016.

Golf doesn't "need" the Olympics, any more than tennis does, but even so, an Olympic golf event would be a cracking addition. I'd like to see a format something like the show jumping combined individual/team event, where each country was represented by 3 or 4 players, and medals were awarded for both individual and overall team (combined score). If the IGF can be clever, and agree terms with the World Golf Championship (WGC) committee, the Olympics could maybe replace the WGC strokeplay event in Olympic years, so as not to require an extra week to be put into the schedule (the WGC is normally played in August, the week after the USPGA, right when the Olympics are normally scheduled). It used to be the case that some Olympic cities wouldn't have suitable golf courses (Moscow, Munich. Mexico City) but nowadays, such is the spread of the game that there's virtually no major city (or at least country) in the world that doesn't boast at least one championship golf course.

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The existence of a single governing body for a sport is one of the IOC's pre-requisites for a sport to be included at the Olympic Games

How does boxing get in then? I thought that had several competing governing bodies. Does it have a single organisation for amateur fights?

And they still exclude rubgy 7s in favour of crap like BMX.

Rugby Sevens ON BMXs would be fucking awesome.

Conversions might be a bit problematic but I'm sure they'd find a way.

Personally, I wouldn’t mind watching Golf on the Olympics but given that an average round takes in excess of five hours these days it would be hard to fit into what is already a packed Olympic schedule, and its introduction could take away some seriously condensed TV coverage away from the sports that would not usually get much of a profile outside of the Games.

The introduction of Rugby Sevens events in the Commonwealth Games shows that in a more condensed format, Golf could fit in pretty well if it was played over nine holes instead of the usual eighteen.

And why not go even further and arrange for competitors to play Pitch & Putt? It would be possible to design an arena where a perimeter could be created round the whole course for spectators, with the ubiquitous giant screen to accommodate the more obscured holes depending on your viewpoint. This way the issue of hazardous lies, the bone of contention between the R&A and the USGA would be taken out of the equation as there would be no fairways or rough to negotiate.

While there would be no need as such for caddies, I would not be averse to having them there provided that they were awarded a medal for their contribution should their man (or woman – another plus point is that Pitch & Putt could be a mixed event) get on the podium at the end, seeing as they can’t get a share of the winnings as the prize pot for an Olympic event would be nil.

But most of all, it might give Pitch & Putt enough of a profile for it to become so popular that it would lead to an improvement in facilities and give a less formal introduction to a game which still has an element of exclusivity about it. And it would be interesting to see established players take on a challenge that is different from the week to week grind of their respective tours (or even give the amateurs a go should certain pros not want to know).

Just a thought.

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And they still exclude rubgy 7s in favour of crap like BMX

They don't have 5-a-side footy or 2-on-2 basketball either.

The problem with golf in the Olympics would be twofold.

Firstly, many candidate cities are simply not going to have a course of the required (ie "World Class", rather than merely Championship) standard anywhere near them, and it's not the sort of thing you can build for the tournament specially in a couple of years. Golf is just too tied up with geography, at least at the iconic level of the sport with which the Olympics are concerned.

Secondly, it's the iconic level thing again. Such are the vagaries of form in golf, and the influence of chance, that winning one tournament couldn't in and of itself give one player the status within the sport for four whole years that is considered due to the Olympic Champion. Especially if it were held on an inferior, or simply unknown, course. The Olympics simply wouldn't be the biggest deal in golf, which is unacceptable as far as the Olympic "brand"* is concerned.


* I don't mean this in a marketing or promotion sense, I mean it in terms of the attempt to preserve what is felt to be important and distinctive about the Olympics, up with which so much of the Olympics' importance and distinctiveness is bound.

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Such are the vagaries of form in golf, and the influence of chance, that winning one tournament couldn't in and of itself give one player the status within the sport for four whole years that is considered due to the Olympic Champion. Especially if it were held on an inferior, or simply unknown, course. The Olympics simply wouldn't be the biggest deal in golf, which is unacceptable as far as the Olympic "brand"* is concerned.

Olympic brand* men's football:

1996 Nigeria
2000 Cameroon
2004 Argentina

Olympic brand* men's tennis:

1996 Andre Agassi
2000 Yevgelny Kafelnikov
2004 Nicolas Massu

If the Olympic brand* men's golf champions had been

1996 Colin Montgomerie
2000 Thomas Bjorn
2004 Chris DiMarco

I don't think there would have been any real difference, and hey, it might have given those players something to look back on.

Tennis is problematic - and while it's too big and powerful to remove, it's something they're keen to avoid repeating. There's also an inherent difficulty with tennis insofar as different players specialise on different surfaces.

Football, as we know, is a bit of a special case - again, there are reservations in the Olympic movement about its status - but the u23s-plus-nominees thing works pretty well as a compromise. Clearly, even a senior Olympics would lack the cachet of the World Cup.

Those two sports are uniquely (biquely?) anomalous, though, and certainly not ideal models for future expansion of the Games...

Road race cycling, then?

1996 Pascal Richard
2000 Jan Ullrich
2004 Paolo Bettini

not a bad list, as things go, but hardly "the pinnacle" of that sport either.

Exactly the same's true of the Men's downhill in the Winter Olympics. As a one-off race, it's been won by some complete "one-hit-wonders" in the past, who've never won another thing on the World Cup Tour.

Why not play it as a match tournament over, say six days. That way it could not be compared to the majors, and let's face it, none of the match-playing individual competitions played today comes close to the majors in stature. This could become THE match tournament to win.

I'm not how sure some kind of "team" format could be included in the above, but let's say the best nation from the individuals qualify for the last 16, played over two days.

hobbes wrote:

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And they still exclude rubgy 7s in favour of crap like BMX

They don't have 5-a-side footy or 2-on-2 basketball either.

No, but then neither of those have the same resonance in their sports as 7s does in rugby. It worked well at the Commonwealth Games, a lot of countries play 7s, why not let it in rather than an "extreme" sport famous chiefly for an 80s film in which Nicole Kidman zoomed around on a pink bike pursued by idiots?

Is that a lot relative to how many play XVs or a lot as in really a lot?

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Road race cycling, then?

1996 Pascal Richard
2000 Jan Ullrich
2004 Paolo Bettini

not a bad list, as things go, but hardly "the pinnacle" of that sport either.

It's pretty much the pinnacle of one-day road race cycling, yeah. The Monuments are The Monuments, but each is a law unto itself. In Olympic years, it supersedes the Worlds.

Eggchaser wrote:

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hobbes wrote:

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And they still exclude rubgy 7s in favour of crap like BMX

They don't have 5-a-side footy or 2-on-2 basketball either.

No, but then neither of those have the same resonance in their sports as 7s does in rugby.

Uh, especially 2-on-2 basketball. 3-on-3 is more common. But 1-on-1 basketball in the Olympics would be brilliant.