David Leggat: Golf's Olympic hopes may not be a hole in one

Expect Sevens rugby to be signed off for the 2016 Olympics. It may yet be a different story for golf.

When the 15-person International Olympic Committee executive voted yesterday on which two of seven sports it would recommend to the full 106-member congress in Copenhagen, sevens got in comfortably.

The other candidates were squash, baseball, softball, karate and roller sports.

Golf initially trailed karate, collecting just one vote in each of the first two rounds before getting up after three rounds of voting to reach the required majority of eight votes.

And that point may not be lost come Copenhagen. That early vote suggests unease over golf - that all may not be plain sailing just yet.

The IOC is feeling the heat for having chosen the two sports with the most financial muscle, and the message that sends.

Softball reckons it's lost about US$1 million on its campaign. Squash believes its financial hole will take "years to repair".

And they're bitter because they smell a rat.

The International Rugby Board, in particular, and the golf planners anticipate Olympic representation would help to broaden their sports' global appeal.

Those who missed out are entitled to ask why, given those two sports' financial wherewithal, they need more funding support to develop their sport into the Games programme.

Even if the IOC rejects golf, the five who have missed out have no hope of getting a late reprieve.

England Squash chairwoman Zena Wooldridge said the decision "more than any other suggests that sports like squash will never have a chance".

Wooldridge is not alone. The IOC also faces charges it has chased, in golf's case, the big names, and in Tiger Woods, it possesses the biggest of the lot.

Rugby has proposed two 12-team competitions.

Golf, missing from the Games programme for 105 years, has plans for two 72-hole strokeplay tournaments for fields of 60, of whom the top 15 will be on world rankings. In other words, it'll be a tournament like any other on the US and European Tours, apart from smaller fields.

Golf should not be there because it is an uncomfortable fit. Nor should tennis, for that matter. They feel like the fat-cat sports.

Yet those who count them out because they are professional sports are wrong: Usain Bolt is not running for peanuts.

However, an Olympic gold medal should represent the pinnacle in a sport.

Would the golf champion value his achievement higher than winning the Masters or the US Open? Does the tennis gold medallist put his Games gong above the Wimbledon or French crowns? Of course not.

Sevens has a better argument for inclusion. Fiji, Samoa, Tonga, perhaps even Kenya, would be genuine chances of winning a medal, even the top one.

It is done and dusted in two days, and can use the main stadium before the final week, which is traditionally given over to athletics.

The IOC has also approved women's boxing for 2016. There are now women's events in all 28 sports on the Olympic card, but that's not the case for men.

So, no male rhythmic gymnasts twirling ribbons or rolling balls down their backs; or synchronised swimmers. Damn.

Reverse discrimination? Maybe. The inclusion of women in golf and sevens' proposals is thought to have been a winner around the voting table.

It is not a perfect programme. Why is modern pentathlon there? Or Greco-Roman wrestling? Both sports have long had their halcyon days.

The biggest anomaly is soccer, which is an under-23 tournament.

Backs are scratched to win Olympic spots. Clearly rugby and golf, apart from having the deepest pockets, proved the supreme smoochers.