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.
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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