Golf Year in Review #2: Golf Returns to the Olympics

The year was 1904. That’s 112 years ago if you’re doing the math in your head.

There were only 45 states. The average life expectancy in the USA was 47 years, and more than 85% of homes had no bathtub.

On the list of things that had not been invented yet, you could find iced tea, canned beer, Mother’s Day, the airplane, and television.

There were 16 baseball teams. The Boston Americans won their first of nine World Series in franchise history (most of them as the Red Sox), but didn’t have to play the actual series. The New York Giants refused to play the Americans because they were in the fledgling American league and the Giant’s manager John McGraw considered the American League little more than a minor league.

The NFL didn’t exist. American football was played only by colleges at the time, and the Penn Quakers won the national championship.

The NBA didn’t exist. The sport of basketball was itself only 13 years old.

The Ottawa Hockey Club won the Stanley Cup in ice hockey by defeating the Winnipeg Rowing Club. (Maybe because Winnipeg was a rowing club and not a hockey club?) The formation of the National Hockey League was still 13 years in the future.

In the world of golf, the major championships were the Opens and Amateurs of the United States and Great Britain. Walter Travis became the first American to win the British Amateur that year, and George Lyon of Canada was the second gold medalist in golf when the games were contested in St. Louis. The women had played golf in the 1900 Olympics, but not in 1904.

In the 112 years since, we have seen the inventions of two of our modern majors (The PGA Championship and the Masters); the patent of dimples on golf balls; the patent of steel shafted clubs; the invention of the sand wedge (and an innumerable number of other equipment inventions); and the creation of the PGA Tour, the LPGA Tour, the Ryder Cup, the President’s Cup, the Solheim Cup, and all the other cups you can think of.

In those years, the following golf courses were built: August National, Pebble Beach, Pinehurst No. 2, Pine Valley, and the Olympic Club.

I could write pages and pages on the things that have happened since golf was last contested in the Olympics. We have had 19 Presidents of the United States and two world wars.

Suffice it to say that in 112 years, a lot can happen. Hell, if you’ve been reading my articles, you know a lot happened in the last 365 days.

But golf, one of the oldest codified games in human history, has not been contested in the 24 summer games that were contested between 1904 and 2016. Indeed, the return of golf to the Olympics signified only the third time the sports was contested at the Games for men, and only the second time for women!

Part of this is that the organizers of Olympic golf couldn’t get together on the rules and format, as happened in 1908. Sometimes there was simply a lack of interest in participating, as happened in 1920.

While I have no evidence of this, my hypothesis for the exclusion of golf in the Olympics is simply that the game is doing just fine on its own. The reason people haven’t made a big deal about golf not being in the Olympics is because we have international tournaments all the time. Every week on Tour is like the Olympics. The Open Championship is an international event and has been for more than a century. So is the US Open.

However, there is nothing like an Olympic medal. Nothing. The Games are only held every four years, so your chances of winning one are limited. If you have a reasonably long golf career, say 25 years, the best you can hope for is seven chances to win an Olympic medal, and that’s if you are good enough over that length of time, and if the Olympic years fall right.

I’m happy Olympic golf is back. I love the Olympics. I love watching athletes from all over the world, some of whom have absolutely no chance of winning a medal, represent their countries proudly on a global stage.

And this year, as Matt Kuchar took his bronze medal (behind gold medalist Justin Rose and silver medalist Henrik Stenson), and became the first American to win a medal in Olymipc golf in more than a century, I felt the national pride I always feel when I see one of my countrymen do so well.

And I’m hopeful that in four years, one of our American women can challenge Inbee Park, Lydia Ko, and Shanshan Feng (gold, silver, bronze respectively) for a medal in Japan.

Golf belongs in the Olympics and it is a travesty that the great game has been contested at the Games so infrequently.

Cover Image via Flickr