Finchem Hints At World Cup Format As Possible Olympic Sport

If you've been busy with the holidays and unable to watch the ISPS Handa World Cup from Kingston Heath, you've missed out on some glorious golf architecture and pretty good golf. The stakes figure to get a lot more intersting Friday when the players go back to foursomes play. The event wraps up Saturday night at 5pm on Golf Channel as four-ball play decides the title.

Since the Zurich Classic received a very warm reception for its move to a two-man team format, the momentum seems to be headed toward team play in the Olympic Games.

Adam Pengilly of The Age reports on the first hopeful sign of progress, from that progressive Commissioner his ownself, Tim Finchem.

"The feedback is very positive [on team-based formats]," the PGA Tour's Commissioner said. "We're looking at the formats for 2020 and we like individual competition, but we'd also like to mix in a different competition or two and we're looking at different possibilities.

"We might end up saying, 'we'll keep it the way it is', we might recommend a couple of changes on certain days where we do a different type of competition. And it also affects scheduling so we're looking how that all works."

So we know individual competition is staying because this game of individualists is addicted to 72-holes of stroke play. (Even though until the last days, golf came off as a painful slog in the context of the higher, faster, stronger Games).

But we know two-person team match play would be superb. Two days, at least, are needed for that.

So if you factor in individual stroke play, we're up to at least six competition days. With the PGA Tour showing no interest in ceasing play for two weeks every four years, the pressure to keep things as tight as possible could actually be used to Olympic golf's advantage.

Because right now, by adding team competition of some kind, we're looking at 12 days of competition between men and women. That may be too much for officials, fans and volunteers.

There is a final key caveat as explained to me by IGF officials who will create and present any changes: the IOC does not want to see two medal competitions in one.

Translation: a team medal cannot be awarded from the stroke play competition.

So here is my final offer:

72-holes of stroke play from a field of 60. Three medals will be awarded just like we saw in 2016. If you want to shorten the competition days to ten overall between men and women, make the first day a 36-hole first and second round. (Rio could not handle that due to shorter winter days, whereas Tokyo, Paris and Los Angeles will all have plenty of daylight.)

From that competition, the low eight two-person teams (based on country with pairings pre-determined by world rankings), advance to a two-day match play event. They are broken up into Pools A and B based on seedings from the stroke play competition. (Countries that only send one player or an odd number of three will not be included, sorry.)

Day one of the two-person team match play is a 27-hole day, with three 9-hole foursomes matches played by each team within their pool. With nine-holes and foursomes, you may be looking at some very quick matches, addressing the speed issue that plagues the game.

The two top teams advance from those pools to an 18-hole gold medal match, with the runners-up playing an an 18-hole bronze medal match. How ties in the pools are decided, I'm not sure. But sudden death playoffs would be fun.

So to recap: five or six days of competition, with stroke play while team foursomes match play introduces a shorter, faster, high-pressure format. Both nine-hole rounds and alternate shot are put on an international stage for the world to see golf is not the slog it can sometimes be.

What do you think?