Time for golf to come to the fore at Olympics

A most important 30 minutes in the history of golf occurs on Monday when a well-rehearsed team will advocate the inclusion of the game in the 2016 Olympics to the executive board of the International Olympic Committee (IOC).
Whether or not golf should be in the Olympics is not a hot topic among golfers but that should not diminish the debate. Golf was an Olympic sport in 1904. It is time it was again.
Golf has 60million participants in 120 countries, making it one of the world's most popular sports in terms of players and followers, and were it to become an Olympic sport then financial support would be made available to grow the game even more. “In order to jump-start interest and support of the sport, you need money,” David Fay, executive director of the United States Golf Association, said recently. “The best way to get that is through two sources - your government or the national Olympic committee. For these countries [such as Croatia or Russia], there's no substitute for it being an Olympic medal sport.”
The Olympic ideals embody sportsmanship and integrity. So, too, do those of golf, which remains a game in which players call penalties on themselves and wish their opponents well at the start and conclusion of a round. The sport is considered by other sports to be largely untouched by drugs, gambling or any other controversy. Indeed there is a school of thought that opposes golf's inclusion in the Games on the ground that by doing so golf would be sullying itself.
It is true that the Olympics would not represent the pinnacle of achievement for participants, who will continue to regard the four major championships as the ultimate prizes. But that is true of tennis, too. It is also true that another 72-hole strokeplay event would be repetitive of almost every other tournament and that many of the game's leading players would not qualify.
But the format has the approval of the game's stars. Present plans allow for 60 men and 60 women to participate, with the world's top 15 gaining automatic entry. The rest of the field would be filled by the highest world-ranked players from countries that do not already have two players represented.
There are eight different countries represented in the leading 15 players in the men's game and six in the women's game. Tiger Woods, the best male player, was born to an African-American father and a Thai mother. The best woman player, Lorena Ochoa, is a Mexican. Isn't this what the Olympics is meant to be? Truly international competition.
I hope that golf's campaign succeeds and that it becomes the moment the game rids itself of its shabby attitude towards women. I first wrote the following paragraph in the mid-1980s and so little has changed in the meantime that three months ago I was able to write it again.
“This country has had a Queen reigning over us for nearly 60 years and for a good few of those years a female Prime Minister led the Government in Westminster but despite this it is still possible for a man to say to his wife: ‘Darling, we can share a bed and a bank account but we can't share the tee straight after breakfast on a Saturday or Sunday morning.'”
In this regard it struck me as odd that IOC representatives were invited to attend the Masters in April. If I were making a case for an all-embracing game to be included in the Olympic Games I don't think I would have used a men-only golf club in the south of the United States with only a few non-white members as an exemplar.
Despite this, and in contrast to the half-hearted attempt to get golf into the Olympics in 1996, Ty Votaw, a vice-president of the PGA Tour in the US, has led a good campaign, resulting in golf and rugby sevens being the favoured candidates for 2016.
A few decisions in golf recently have been made on the basis of “for the good of the game” - such as staging the Ryder Cup in Spain in 1997 - and this is another one of those decisions. Is the game strong enough within itself to embrace a new concept? I certainly hope so. Golf should be in the Olympics. It belongs there.
Jostling for contention
Golf Joint favourite.Rugby sevens Joint favourite. Boosted following with its World Cup.Baseball Outsider because of drug culture.Softball Contender as all-women sport.Roller sports Rank outsider.Karate Aren't there enough martial arts in the Games?Squash Strong contender.
Source:The times