Paul Lewis: Money makes the gold go around

This Wednesday, the International Olympic Committee will decide whether golf will enter the Olympics in 2012. I am not sure which gaggle of geniuses thought this one up but I can only look at the IOC and shake my head in wonder.

This august body, most famously remembered for various bribery scandals, are supposed to be the guardians of the Olympic spirit; the Olympic ideal. I think we're all grown up enough to realise that one tootled off to the cesspit of broken dreams a long time ago.

On the face of it, golf does have a case for Olympic inclusion. It is a former Olympic sport - dropped after the 1904 St Louis Games. It has an enormous following and is one of the biggest, if not the biggest, participant sports in the world.

And I'm not going to get all misty-eyed about the Olympic ideal and that nasty, grubby money stuff. Although that IS the reason the IOC are even considering golf as an Olympic sport. Golf would arrive at the Olympic halls with its pockets overstuffed with money and offering highly tantalising prospects to the IOC and broadcasters.

But there's another issue. As much as I enjoy golf, is it really an Olympic sport? Surely there has to be some sanity here. The most professional of professional sports do not translate well to the Olympic stage.

Example: tennis. Excuse me, but who remembers the Olympic tennis champions since tennis moved into gold medal territory? Yep, thought so. In Athens, the finals were played out in front of yawning chasms of empty seats as spectators went looking for a real Olympic sport.

You see, the Corinthian spirit, while it's in a bit of a coma, isn't quite dead. Ordinary sports fans realise that sports where fabulously rich people beat other fabulously rich people for rich prizes is best pursued in an environment which at least contains the tradition and ethos of that sport. In a word, majors.

It's the same with golf. The highest expression of the sport is the four majors, not a meaningless tournament at the end of which a gong is hung around the victors' necks - gongs which hark back to the purity of sport and excellence of achievement, not the excellence of cramming as many dollars into one's hip pocket as possible.

Football is another example... U-23 players bolstered by a few seniors. How does that translate to the peak of the sport?

I'm still trying to get over beach volleyball as an Olympic sport. Volleyball, the sport, is a legitimate Olympic exercise. Beach volleyball is a cross between voyeurism and a pastime invented by bored bunnies on California beaches before they discovered Ecstasy. This is probably the first Olympic sport based on sex appeal. Take a peek at the women's costumes and the fact that the men's competition is all but ignored. What next, masturbation races?

I guess I've given in on synchronised swimming, which always seems to get beaten up when it comes to discussion of Olympic sports. I'd never watch synchronised swimming, or synchronised drowning as a cynical friend of mine once dubbed it, but I have to concede the point that it's no dafter than many other Olympic sports.

IOC President Jacques Rogge has at least tried to introduce a modicum of sanity into the process of introducing new sports into the Olympics by insisting that the number of sports and overall participants will not increase.

This means that new sports will have to replace existing ones which is what the IOC will decide when they meet in Singapore on Wednesday. Golf is one hopeful new entrant. So is karate, squash, rugby sevens and roller sports. An existing sport will not maintain its Olympic status if it polls less than 50 per cent of the votes from IOC members (who have not expelled a sport since 1936).

Golf has probably got the best chance. It comes bedecked with jewels and global appeal. Sports like cycling, rowing and swimming are coming under the IOC microscope because they produce lots of medals and the eagle-eyed members of the IOC want to make sure the same people don't win too many medals because the events are too similar. That's the sort of side door golf could use to sneak into the Olympic calendar and tee itself up.

But let's hear it from the world's most famous golfer, Tiger Woods: "I am very excited about this but what would you rather win: the Olympic gold or one of the majors?"

So if the world's best says Olympic golf doesn't cut it, what are the rest of us supposed to think? There may be a case for restricting the Olympics to amateur golfers only but the IOC want big names and money makers.

Better to give the slot to rugby sevens. But while Sevens might fill a stadium, in the eyes of the IOC it doesn't have enough female participation nor, maybe, enough global interest. As opposed to beach volleyball, for example. 

- HERALD ON SUNDAY