The Culprit Behind The PGA Tour's Crammed 2015-16 Schedule?

The Olympics will get the blame but this was so avoidable (and will be in 2020).

You can study the 2015-16 schedule in all its glory and, if you find it a bit clogged come July, just blame the PGA Of America regime of a few years ago for locking on Baltusrol as its 2016 PGA site before we know if golf would be played in the Rio Olympic Games. Not that they knew was coming. (Baltusrol is close to New York City, where the PGA of America was founded 100 years ago next year.)

In the PGA's defense, they selected Baltusrol in August 2008.

Golf got into the Olympics in August, 2009.

Rio was selected as the 2016 host city in October, 2009.

Because of Baltusrol's limited golf season and the skewed importance of the NFL, the 2016 PGA can only be played select weeks. This gives us a frantic run that will have ramifications for majors, some PGA Tour events and certainly some of the better European Tour stops played around this time. If ever there were a year to put the WGC Bridgestone on hiatus...

As Rex Hoggard notes for GolfChannel.com, the John Deere seems to be one taking a hit for the team, but in reality their field will be about the same as normal. Just light on Spieth's and some international players.

"We feel like we’ve had challenging dates over the 45-year history of our event, but the community has always supported it and we stand proud behind our product,” said tournament director Clair Peterson.

The Olympic field will include 60 players but will likely be top-heavy with star players. Current projections indicate that nearly half of the field will be made up of players ranked outside the top 100 in the World Golf Ranking.

“With only four of our American players playing and, to be honest, I don’t know how many Tour players will be in the [Olympic] field, I don’t know how much that will deter a field," Bohn said. "That would be the ultimate concern if I was the tournament director, but I don’t think it will diminish anything.”

The U.S. Women's Amateur also announced a new date due to the Olympics and will be played the first week of August.

Of course, much of this could have been avoided had the PGA not been locked into Baltusrol. It was a harmless, well intentioned move at the time, but by committing to a major venue so far in advance, tied the hands of those trying to make golf's re-entry into the Games a better experience.