CNNSI today had a blurb about trying to add golf to the Olympics.
Why?
There is no way Olympic golf will take the place of the 4 majors. If the Summer Olympics are held in August, that will interfere with the PGA Championship. If they’re held in July, they run up against the British Open.
I don’t think anyone wants to watch a bunch of Nationwide Tour golfers hack it out for a gold medal.
Wouldn’t any Olympic golfers have to have amateur status to compete? That would keep it out of direct competition with the pro tours and might do some interesting things in terms of showcasing talent that would otherwise not be seen on the big stage. I personally go back and forth in my opinion on the issue, but I hadn’t really considered it from the perspective of Major competition.
The Olympics dropped the amateur requirement long ago. It’s up to each sports federation to determine the qualifications that its olympians must meet.
The tennis pros play at the Olympics so probably not.
Hm, shows what I know. Ignorance fought!
Not to mention the 4 majors but the PresCup/RyderCup in alternate years and for the PGA Tour there is the FedEx cup with its four season ending tourneys. Also there is a world team event during the winter season - and never do you see Tiger and Phil playing. Last year it was Sluman and Weekly for the USA.
I also think its a bad idea - the Ams get lots of global play (Walker Cup, British Am, and at least the US Open - how about the Open Champ - does it pull from Am tourney’s also)
The pros are too well paid to play to take time off.
Finally what format - match or medal play. Team format or individual. Would it be during the 14 days of the Olympics or would it be stretch out like other sports so that only the semi final on are during the week.
Of course as I am typing I realize that it is a bad idea for the USA team…maybe not bad for South Korea, Japan, Australia etc that have great golf but not as much on the world stage…
Practically nobody ever agrees with me on this, but in my opinion:
Any sport that already has events more prestigious than the Olympics should NOT be Olympic sports.
A Wimbledon title will always be far more prestigious than a gold medal in Olympic tennis. So, scratch tennis.
The Stanley Cup will always be more prestigious than Olympic hockey. Scratch hockey.
The WBA heavyweight champion will always command more respect than the Olympic heavyweight boxing champ.
Baseball has the World Series. Basketball has the NBA championship. And so on.
Well, golf already has numerous events that are more prestigious than the Olympics. So, forget adding it.
Leave the Olympics to the skiers, the gymnasts, the swimmers, the divers, the track stars, the people for whom this is THE big event.
I don’t agree with you… 
But I do agree with you.
I kinda agree with you except for boxing. Amateur boxing has a long and distinguished history, and many great boxers have turned pro after doing well at the Olympics.
While I mostly agree, I think you need to be looking at national team events when considering team sports. Hence the World Cup dwarfs the Olympics, so soccer/football should not be in the Olympics. But the Stanley Cup, World Series and NBA championship are all played by franchise teams. Nobody else has an opportunity to play. Certainly, these are not international team events. Hence I think it is fine for them to be in the Olympics which can be the pinnacle to which a national team can aspire.
Basketball has been an Olympic sport since 1936. The NBA didn’t come about for another decade, and took time to gain prestige (as late as 1968, the last game of the NBA Finals didn’t air on a network). The Olympics has priority, something that can’t be said about (for example) baseball or tennis, and which couldn’t be said about golf.
I also agree with astorian and am annoyed I didn’t think of his point first. The Olympics are ridiculously big. I’d like to see them reduced to track and field, aquatics, gymnastics and maybe a couple of other sports. I’d also like to see the bombastic pointless opening ceremony cancelled. It should be longer, with the sports more spread out.
Try telling Roger Federer that this wasn’t THE big one. If he hadn’t got his gold consolation medal in the doubles, he would have been a very unhappy bunny.
Poor bunny.
Nope - the Olympics is the only place that anyone other than the U.S. and Canada play hockey (well, and all those Europeans on our teams). The World Series is not exactly a World event. The World Cup, on the other hand, definitely the Olympics aren’t needed.
(I knew some of the 1980 hockey team - that was the big event - even for those guys that went on to play pro Hockey).
Golf - let them have it. Some people might choose to play for the sake of being an Olympic medalist - others wouldn’t. You might get more B Tier golfers, but you might also get some more interesting golf.
Yeah, I gotta agree that astorian’s idea is heavily Western/U.S. biased. Besides which, how many people outside of the U.S. really care about the NBA championships? How is that “more prestigious” than the Olympics? I know the U.S. usually wins these days, but under this scheme, Greece would never have even touched the game.
astorian, in Europe, the Olympics are a much bigger thing than the Stanley Cup. It’s only [del]North American[/del] Canada where the Cup is considered more important.