Paul Lewis: Olympic golf all about cash

Paul Lewis

Now, look. I've given it a week or so for it to settle down but there's just no getting away from it. Golf belongs in the Olympics like a jam doughnut in a Weight Watchers' meeting.

This is even accepting that the Olympics are no longer quite what they were; the Corinthian ideal; the pure athletic pursuit of excellence and global achievement.

How else do you explain the following sports in the Olympics: beach volleyball and seven card stud poker?

All right, all right ... . I made that last one up. But it's exasperating watching the International Olympic Committee hand out entry cards to sports that simply have no business being there.

Ah, there's a word - business. That's what it is all about. Golf is in the Olympics for one reason only: money.

Sure, it came into the ringed fold with ringing words about growing the game worldwide and golfing numbers are indeed dropping in the western world.

They're going gangbusters in the East, however, and the growing influence of nations like China and India - and the big moolah from US networks keen to show millions of Americans Tiger Woods surging up the final fairway at the Olympics - meant golf was assured of its first Olympic showing since 1904.

Its selection has nothing to do with growing the game and everything to do with growing the Olympic wallet.

Even Woods has been infected with this virus, declaring that golf and the Olympics were "a perfect fit". A perfect fit? Come on, Tiger. Yin and yang is a perfect fit. Peaches and cream. Holmes and Watson. Fish and chips. Jennifer Aniston's bottom.

Sorry, that just slipped out. We wish.

Woods must know in his heart of hearts that golf fails the one major criterion for a sport worthy of Olympic inclusion. It has to be the pinnacle of that sport.

Golf has four majors which all rate ahead of any Olympic gold medal. It also doesn't rate ahead of the fascinating and parochial US vs Europe Ryder Cup competition.

Fast forward 20 years and Woods is being questioned about his greatest moments as the greatest golfer, having broken Jack Nicklaus' record of majors won.

He'll talk about the Masters, or maybe the US Open. He'll say sod-all about the Olympics. That will figure in his mind about as much as whether he had the chicken or the fish at dinner when he won the 2012 Masters.

I can understand Woods wanting an Olympic gold medal. After all, it's nice and shiny and Nicklaus doesn't have one. It's much better to wear than those bloody horrible green jackets. And try putting the Old Claret Jug in your pocket.

I love golf. It's one of the great sports. I wish I was better at it and I wish I hadn't thrown those clubs and, on that one occasion only, that golf bag.

But that's the whole point. It is a great sport. It has great heights and great traditions. Golf in the Olympics? Pffft.

Golf has billions of dollars in sponsors, has major manufacturing and fashion industries attached to it and is one of the most commercial sports on the planet. Fair enough, we can even overlook the fact that the top golfers earn gazillions in a single tournament and that the FedEx Cup provides obscene amounts of cash to the bloke who wins - Woods, this year.

All they are doing by playing golf at the Olympics is cheapening the Olympics and cheapening golf.

Still not convinced? Then look at the Olympic format. It's a 72-hole stroke play tournament, same as is played every week on the PGA Tour and the European PGA Tour. Thing is, not even all the top players in the world will be there - as they usually are on both those tours.

The rules say that it is an individual contest - not a competition for countries. The top 15 players in the world qualify automatically and the remaining 45 comprise the highest-ranked players from nations who do not already have two players in that top 15.

That is skewed to the US who currently have seven players in the top 15 (although they may not have by 2016).

But, worse than that, they missed a chance (if we have to have golf in the Olympics) to make it a meaningful tournament.

The current World Cup of golf, a team event, is a pale shadow of world cups in other sports. Lesser-ranked golfers like it but the top blokes regard it as about on a par with stepping in hippo poo.

What was wrong with making it a teams event - two- or three-person teams which battle it out for the best combined score; a real international event where all the winning golfers get medals after winning for their country?

That might be a challenge - a real Olympic struggle, not a commercial-political arrangement lined with dollars and false credibility.

Still not convinced? Think, then, of Olympic tennis. Name the last three men's and women's Olympic champions?

Can't? I'll bet not. It's the same as golf, you see, all the authority and the glamour of the sport really resides at Wimbledon, Melbourne, Paris and Flushing Meadow.

Olympic tennis (and golf) is like eating yoghurt with a fork. It looks the same, it smells the same, it tastes the same but it's just not forking credible.