Golf at the Olympics & Why Grow The Game is a Mistake

PGA Tour Commissioner, Tim Finchem has made it known that he'd like golf to be an Olympic sport as soon as possible. Even Phil Mickelson is worried that golf is on its way to being as widely played as, I don't know, badminton. Lefty was quoted as saying, "We seem to be stagnant in growth. We lose as many golfers as we gain each year in the United States. If we could make this an Olympic sport, I think golf could really grow." It took about a minute before this really sunk in. The head honcho of a professional sports organization, and the number 2 professional on the planet think that golf needs the Olympics. The rally word is always the same, growth. Growth is what golf needs to do and it needs to do it now.

But does it really?

Since when is it the goal of the Olympics to help a sport grow? In fact, the summer games are clogged with sports that likely haven't and won't be growing appreciably anytime soon such as handball, the modern pentathalon and archery. But, the real question is why does the PGA Tour think it's OK to use the Olympics to advance their goals, and what are their actual goals for this gambit?

Golf has been a minor sport for a lot longer than it's been a major one. Very recently, it was a game for non-athletes, geeks and country club clowns. Check out pictures of high school golf teams from anytime before 1997 to see how cool it was just a decade ago.

Though ultimately geeky, golf is still a great game and it has endured. Endurance is a far more significant goal than growth, especially in an individual sport. People will continue to take up and give up on golf because it is so devinely humiliating and unrelentingly difficult, but that's OK. That's the way our game works best.

Even in the pre-Tiger, post-Jack days from the late 80s until 1997, golf was OK though far from booming. I believe that provocateurs like Finchem are really desperately trying to get their ducks in a row before Tiger says his effective farewell, but that's a subject for another article.

The most disingenuous part of Finchem's plea is the time honored idea of the glory of competing for one's country. Gee, isn't that what happens in the Ryder, Presidents, Solheim, Walker and Curtis Cups along with a bunch of other cups I've never heard of? Are tour players really grousing among themselves about never having the chance to go mano a mano with the national team from the Republic of Uzbekistan?

When it comes to organizations like the PGA Tour all you have to remember is follow the money but, hopefully, not to the Olympics.