Why Olympic golf desperately needs a team format

SAINT-QUENTIN-EN-YVELINES, France – This has been great, but something is missing.
Sure, the American men’s golfers at this week’s Olympics tournament, like other countries, have been wearing the same outfits. Those Team USA hats are nice.
But the players aren’t a team. Not really. Not when it counts.
They are competing for an individual prize only. Short of practice rounds together earlier this week, the Americans’ routines haven’t been different from any other golf tournament.
There’s no camaraderie, and that’s a shame.
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“Once the tournament starts,” Scottie Scheffler said, “I think it’s best for us to stick to our normal routines, and that’s what we’ve been doing this week. Guys aren’t going to stick around and cheer me on at 18 because they’ve got to get ready for their round tomorrow.”
It’s good that top golfers have been experiencing all that an Olympics has to offer beyond prize money. It’ll keep them coming back and open to format changes that might have been a tougher sell a decade ago.
They’ve learned that the Olympics aren’t like any other golf tournament. It shouldn’t be set up like one.
A team aspect needs to be added to this.
Here’s my proposal:
For both the men’s and women’s competitions, keep the same field of 60. Play three rounds from Wednesday to Friday to decide the individual medalists. Then go down the leaderboard and start pairing up the top two golfers from each country. The first eight nations to have two players paired up based on the best scores get to advance those two players into a bracket for the weekend.
Then it’s match play foursomes.
Quarterfinals and semifinals on Saturday. Matches for the gold and bronze medals on Sunday.
For example’s sake, if we did this and seeded teams by scores using the first two rounds of this Olympics, here’s the matchups you’d get:
Who’d have a problem with this?
You’re not messing with any golfer’s calendar outside of this week, which would be a major hindrance to any mixed-team event combine men’s and women’s players. You’re not asking anyone to play too much. You’re not tilting the scales toward countries like the USA that’ll qualify more than two players.
You’re also making the final individual holes much more important for golfers already out of medal contention, and causing them to cheer on their teammates, because you need two players to shoot well enough to make it. The final team in the above example – Denmark – didn’t have a player within seven shots of the lead right now.
You’re offering another opportunity to win medals, which is why the golfers are here in the first place.
“I would love the chance to have a team aspect just because it’s another chance for a medal,” Fleetwood said this week. “I would like more chances other than one.”
Beyond that, the match-play portion would be a blast. It would instantly be the most popular part of the golf competitions every four years. And it would be exclusively Olympic, new and unique and fun.
Golf needs more that’s new and unique and fun.
Reach Gentry Estes at [email protected] and on the X platform (formerly known as Twitter) @Gentry_Estes.