Paris 2024 Olympics: Golf's Olympic Opportunity
Has the sport taken advantage of its place at the Greatest Show on Earth?
31 July, 2024 - Cupar, Scotland: 8 years ago, ahead of golf's return to the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro after more than a century away, St Andrews Golf Magazine (now SHANK) published a major feature in a special Olympics edition of the magazine. 'Golf's Olympic Opportunity' previewed golf at the Olympics and set out the great opportunities for the sport being part of the greatest show on earth.
'Golf's Olympic Opportunity' was broken down into the following sections:
1. Growing the Game
2. The Golf Tourism Industry
3. Path to a World Tour
Growing the game has been a hot topic in recent years, with the emergence of LIV Golf, but let's leave LIV until the end of this feature shall we. When golf returned to the Olympics in Rio in 2016 the global golfing population was said to be around 60 million people, fast forward 8 years and it sits at approximately 68 million people across the world. But where are these people?
The original feature said "A place on the Olympic program will help it grow the sport in places where golf is in its infancy". So has it done? The 2023 R&A Global Golf Participation report states that 76% of all 9 hole and 18 hole golf course golfers are in Europe and Asia, and the report shows that participation in the host nation of the 2016 Rio Olympics has seen little to no increase in participation.
There are only 8,799 registered golfers in Brazil, with approximately 27,000 total golfers across a country with a population of more than 214 million people. There are only 122,000 registered golfers across the whole of Central and South America, which is less than 6 European countries individually have.
Despite a thrilling tournament which saw Justin Rose edge out 2016 Open Champion Henrik Stenson for Gold, it seems Olympic Golf has not had a substantive impact upon the sport either recreationally or professionally in Brazil. When the Olympics teed off in Rio in August 2016 Brazil's leading World Ranked golfer was Adilson da Silva, ranked 282nd. Now the leading Brazilian is Fred Biondi, ranked 549th in the world. So in almost every metric which matters, the sport has not progressed in Brazil since hosting the Olympics.
Unfortunately the global establishment must take some of the blame for that. When a country agrees to host the Ryder Cup it does so with a number of requirements, one of which is staging Tour events in the lead up to the event. These can be DP World Tour events, and/or Challenge Tour events. Golf had the perfect couple of events it could have staged on the Olympic Golf Course in Rio - the WGC's and the World Cup of Golf.
Having the best golfers in the world visit Brazil in the years leading up to, and since the Olympics, would raise and maintain interest in the sport, as shown in Ryder Cup host nations. Elevating the Brazil Open to the PGA TOUR could easily have been done if any desire to do so had been shown by the establishment. This would have direct benefits for Brazilian professionals, enabling them to earn more OWGR points, and compete for spots in other PGA TOUR events, and even the Majors.
This would have helped potentially to create Brazilian stars in golf, and inspire the next generation. Golf has the life-changing wealth that would be appealing to most in the Favelas of Rio, and would surely encourage the youth to get involved in the sport. The major tours of the world have worked well together in the past, and have helped to develop and grow the sport through the co-sanctioning of events. An example of how this has worked really well is the partnership between the DP World Tour and the Sunshine Tour, who have co-sanctioned tournaments across South Africa since 1995.
In the near 30 years since the first co-sanctioned event, South African golfers have gone on to win 7 Major Championships, and many PGA TOUR/DP World Tour events. The co-sanctioning of events has enabled South African golfers to gain access to Majors and PGA TOUR events, and this is something with South America has lacked.
The Tour de Las Americas was an independent tour, but lacked the financial might to continue and attract top players to its events, so the PGA TOUR bought it and created the PGA TOUR Latinoamerica. Last year they merged this tour with the PGA TOUR Canada, effectively removing the continental tour of South America. Yes, this creates a pathway to the top for South American golfers, but that pathway is fraught with pitfalls along the way. If the PGA TOUR/DP World Tour were to co-sanction some of the South American national opens it would elevate the sport, and speed up the process of a South American golfer becoming a true star in the sport.
Growing the game should lead eventually to an increase in golf tourism, both into the country (in the case of Brazil) and to the iconic destinations of the sport (such as St Andrews). Sadly it seems that the Olympics did not shine a bright enough light on golf in Brazil, despite the creation of an iconic championship-standard course in Rio for the Games. Riolize Golf was established in 2015 as an inbound golf tour operator, offering luxury golf travel experiences to Brazil, but ceased trading within 5 years due to the lack of interest. Inbound Tourism to Brazil has stalled in general since 2016, due to a number of factors, including the violence exhibited by criminals and the country’s reputation.
Perhaps the greatest way we can Grow the game, and boost golf tourism around the world is to popularise it through creating a World Tour, an elite platform like we see in other major global sports such as Tennis and Formula 1. The emergence of LIV Golf since 2022 has put the discussion around a World Tour front and centre, and it has highlighted just how fragmented the sport is. That was the case before LIV, despite what some others may try and say.
The Olympic Games can be at the heart of uniting this sport, and moving it in the right direction. The sport lacks a singular governing body, both at amateur and professional level, and that is something which has not changed in the 8 years since golf returned to the greatest show on earth. In conclusion Golf has made an absolute Horlicks of the Olympic Opportunity, but with so many different parties with vested interests it isn’t really a surprise. The sport needs to come together, under one banner and sort its act out, otherwise it may not have this opportunity for much longer. That would be a disaster and a crying shame, it would be bad for all of us who love this game.
SHANK, by Matt Hooper
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