"Golf has about as much place in the Olympic Games as competitive eating"

There will be many columns like this heading into Tokyo where the field may be missing a lot of top players.

Building off Dustin Johnson’s decision to pass, Gavin Newsham writes a New York Post commentary on golf’s inclusion in the Olympic Games. After explaining the return, he writes:

In golf, the world’s best play each other all the time; in the majors, in the World Golf Championship events and then pretty much every week on tour. In that respect, Olympic soccer and tennis can make way for events that would benefit from being in the Olympics, like squash or lacrosse. And as for rugby — really? 

Of course, if the IOC wanted to, it could simply make golf revert to the original ethos of the Games by making the event strictly for amateur players, giving those up-and-coming players that rarest of opportunities to represent their country in the Olympics. 

Failing that, they could look at their famous Olympic motto — “Faster, Higher, Stronger” — and ask whether golf really ticks any of those boxes. 

As even a less-than-thrilling WGC just proved, match play should have been the format.

And as any of the team events remind us, they’re almost always better than 72-holes of stroke play. They also lead to peer pressure to play, something the organizers might want to think about for the golf in the Games.