Suggestions for Olympic Golf formats
Golf as an Olympic sport is one step closer to teeing off. In the spirit of counting your total score on hole 17, here’s a few formats I would find intriguing:
* Qualifying rounds. Similar to track, swimming and other events that don’t care how well you did the previous round, I’d say start off with 80 golfers, and the lowest 20 get cut each round. But in round two, everyone starts at even par. So in order to win, you have to be pretty solid all four days. On the fifth and final day, it’s straight stroke play between the final foursome.
* Team play. Similar to the Ryder Cup, only two-day formats. So on Days 1 and 2, it’s team #1 vs. team #8, and so on. From there, it’s a bracket format, which requires great golf over an 8-day period. (It’s supposed to be tiring and grueling; it’s the Olympics, not the John Deere).
* Four-man scramble. Tiger, Phil, Zach Johnson and Kenny Perry each tee off, then play the best ball from there, and the same after the second shot. A par would be a bad score, and we’d get to see some great shots.
The point is not to have another four-round, stroke-play event. It’s the Olympics, and my vote is to make it a team sport.
– Zachary Baehr
