Bret Piatt

August 13th, 2009 the Olympics made their best decision so far this century, adding golf as a sport in 2016.  The PGA Tour needs to work with the IOC so golf can go for two full weeks of the games, here’s why….

We watch the players week in and week out play in stroke play tournaments.  Sometimes they play match play now thanks to the WGC, and every once in a while they have a team event with the President’s Cup and Ryder Cups.  The Olympics has the opportunity to outshine all of these.

Here is my proposed schedule which I’ll follow by event descriptions:

Don't just have another stroke play tournament

Day 1 – Skill games qualifying round

Day 2 – Match play event practice round

Day 3 – Match play event seeding round

Day 4-7  – Match play medal tournament

Day 8 – Rest day

Day 9 – Skill games medal round

Day 10 – Stroke play event practice round

Day 11-14 – Stroke play medal tournament

For the skill games this will allow a much more wide variety of people to participate.  The qualifying rounds will be used to narrow the field down to the top 16 so you can make a good hour long TV event from the medal round of each.  Skill events descriptions:

Long Drive: This is pretty clear, many of you have probably seen the Long Drivers of America on ESPN, under the lights — with a gold medal on the line the finals will be epic.

Putting Challenge: We’ve all done this with our buddies out on the practice green, play “18 holes” of par 2.  Cities build huge stadiums for the Olympics, the golf course they’re holding it at can build “the best practice green ever” with plateaus, ridges, bowls, and more.

Sand Saves: Tee off from 18 different bunkers around a green, up to 60 yards out, play each as a par 3 which should lead to very low scores (if you did it as a par 2 the scores would be high and that isn’t as good for the viewership).  You can use the tournament course for this as each hole should have a fitting bunker.

Pin Seeker: Varied approach shots into flags on the driving range up to ~220 yards out.  The score for this event is measured in total feet from the pin to where the first shot comes to rest.

For the match play tournament you play a seeding round of stroke play where the top 16 qualify to play in the match play tournament.  This will be a high drama day even though a medal isn’t on the line — much like tournament week leading up to March Madness.  With the cut to 16 you can have 4 days of 18 holes going 16->8, 8->4, 4->2, and then on the final day 1 vs. 2 and 3 vs. 4.

For the stroke play tournament let all of the players from each country participate, cut the field in half (or within 10 strokes of the lead) after two rounds are complete.  This can have some added drama because we’ll also have “overall team medals” so we’ll need a point system for finishing positions in each event and with the stroke play tournament going last even if a player isn’t in position to medal in it, they may be in position to score enough points giving their team an overall medal.

To promote diversity each country should only be able to enter 3 players per event.  Yes, some countries will be leaving better players at home than others will enter but if those other countries don’t get to have an Olympic golfer how will that country ever get the “golf bug”?  This already happens in spots like swimming where each country can only enter their top 2 per event even if their 3rd player is the 3rd fastest in the world.

If they add golf, invite the normal field, play a normal stroke play event I won’t be watching.  Not because it doesn’t have the potential to be a great event but because it won’t have a chance of being what they could make it.