Further to my post on the Olympic Golf Course currently under construction in Rio, CNN offers this video of Shane 's interview with designer Gil Hanse (sorry, it's not available on YouTube and your humble blogger doesn't yet know how to embed it).
Many interesting takeaways as is to be expected from Hanse, who is not known for conceiving and building dog tracks. Specifically, it sounds like an imaginative routing with finishing holes specifically built for an exciting climax.... now if we could only convince the decision makers to add a team or matchplay format to create and maintain drama. Drivable Par 4's and reachable Par 5's may well be necessary conditions for excitement, but are they sufficient? Picture Tiger (or Phil, Adam or Rory, assuming he plays) nursing a two stroke lead down the stretch. That short Par 4 might be drivable, but dollars to donuts, he's laying up with a 4 iron. Oh the drama!
Mentioning Rory reminds me of another potential issue with Olympic golf. The playing for your nation thing can indeed be a dramatic hook, except when it creates too much drama. For Rory, who one assumes will still amongst the game's elite in 2016, nationality is a no-win dilemma. As a resident of Northern Ireland, he can either play for the United Kingdom or the Irish team, either of which is guaranteed to piss off a substantial subset of the local population. As a result, he has spoken publicly about not playing at all. One assumes that he will ultimately play, but it potentially would undermine the legitimacy of the competition, which will already exclude many top tier players because of the selection criteria.
My conclusion remains that Olympic Golf will be a yawn, with minimal beneficial effects on the growth of the game around the world. Perhaps such a yawn fest will force a reconsideration of the format for 2020, which may be their last best chance.
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