History of Golf at the Olympics
When someone thinks about the Olympics, the first images that pop to mind are humans competing in athletics, gymnastics, and wrestling. However, there are forty-one different sports in the Olympics, including golf. It first got featured as a part of this international sporting event in the 1990 Paris games. Yet, following the 1904 St. Louis Olympics, it went into a deep Olympiad sleep that lasted 112 years. Thankfully, it has now made a comeback and has been a part of two concurrent games in Rio and Tokyo.
Though many believe that golf’s popularity has been waning for a while now, statistics say the opposite. According to the US National Golf Federation, the US has close to 25 million active players. That is an increase of 2% from the 2019 figure. Many attribute this rise in interest concerning golf to its inclusion in the Olympics and that most online sportsbooks feature it as a betting option as sites like Casumo offer some of the best golf and hockey betting odds on the internet. Moreover, pandemic-induced lockdowns led to golf being one of the only acceptable social sporting options around. Therefore, with more people actively playing it than ever, let us look at its Olympic history.
Golf’s Olympic Journey
Naturally, the first Olympics took place in ancient Greece. Thus, when it came time to revive this competition and give it a global scope, Athens seemed like the perfect setting for it. So, the first modern iteration of the games took place in Greece’s capital in 1986. Unfortunately, at that time, there were no golf courses in Hellas. So, golf had to wait four years before it made its Olympic debut in Paris, where contests got organized for both men and women.
As mentioned above, the sport was also a part of the St. Louis games, where only the US and Canada competed. There were only two competing nations because those were the only countries that sent golfers to St. Louis. In 1908, the host city was London, and given the lack of entries, golf got canceled again. From then on, this became a constant problem that plagued the sport. It continued to get removed from the roster of sports on offer due to a general lack of interest.
In 2016, golf made a return at the Rio games. The charge for its re-inclusion got led by Ty Votaw, the Vice President of the International Golf Federation (IGF), and Peter Dawson, the president of the IGF. The International Olympic Committee held a golf vote in its 121st session in 2009, where this sport officially got reinstated for the 2016 Olympics.
What Is the Olympic Golf Format?
The Olympics now feature a golf event that involves a 72-hole individual stroke play tournament. It gets played over four consecutive days with no cuts. No nation can enter more than four players in the competition. Two days before the start of rounds one and two, groups of threes get published. Rounds three and four get decided based on a cumulative score. Of course, the lowest golfers go last. Top golfers that went to Tokyo include Collin Morikawa, Xander Schauffele, and Justin Thomas.
