Philadelphia, PA (Best E Casino) - Five years ago I jumped out of an airplane at 15,000 feet and looked down on Scotland Run Golf Club in New Jersey. As my tandem instructor positioned me in a nosedive towards the green and beige patchwork, I kept my mind momentarily occupied as my body accelerated to 120 mph.
"These golf courses are everywhere," I thought. "Screw the blimp. This is the way to see it."
It remains the only time I have ever personally seen a golf course from above, with nothing keeping me from a sudden and terrible impact with the No. 8 bunker but some rope, a little nylon and a guy who had woken up, like me, too early in the morning to be jumping out of airplanes.
But I have looked down on hundreds of golf courses from the window of a plane, and have seen them even closer on approaches to places like Paris, St. Thomas, Punta Cana and even Athens, the capital of course-challenged Greece.
That last one was barely a golf course, as far as I could tell, brown not only around the edges but also down the middle and everywhere in between. Think Hoylake at the '06 British Open, but with less history and a design that must have certainly offended the gods.
The course looked forgettable, but it helped welcome me to the host city of the 2004 Summer Olympics.
And I'm sure I'll see at least one course from the window of my plane when I land in Beijing in August, when golf should be part of the Olympics program, but isn't.
In fact, golf hasn't been an Olympic sport since 1904. And why not? Is there a sport more popular worldwide that hasn't been a part of the Olympics in the last 100 years?
But it takes more than just good ideas and logic to get a sport onto the Olympic program. It must be voted in seven years prior to the target Games.
Golf will next be considered for inclusion in the 2016 Olympics when the IOC assembles next year in Denmark to choose a host city for those Summer Games. It is on a ballot with baseball and softball, sports that were cut from the program for the 2012 Olympics in London. At the same time the IOC voted against baseball and softball for 2012, it also rejected golf.
It seems unlikely, though not impossible, that all three sports will be voted in for the 2016 Games. And among the three sports, baseball and softball have a recent history of success at the Olympics.
So golf would face not just the obstacle of being selected on its own merits, it must also be weighed against two sports with proven methods of selecting the participating teams.
How would golfers be selected for the Olympics?
Certainly the men's and women's world rankings would play a role, as would the governing bodies of all the major world tours.
PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem, in a blog posted at pgatour.com in April titled "Working to bring golf to the Olympics," acknowledged there were obstacles to overcome for golf's inclusion in the Games while voicing his support for its inclusion.
"I believe the time is now right to move forward," he wrote.
The LPGA and European Tours have indicated their support as well, Finchem said. He said the Royal & Ancient Golf Club, which handles the British Open, and the USGA and PGA of America, directors of the U.S. Open and PGA Championship, are evaluating the possibility of Olympic golf.
"I see two very positive developments coming from including golf as an Olympic sport," Finchem wrote. "One would be a significant boost to the popularity and perception of the game all around the world ... The other major benefit is that it would further help bring the world of golf together to work on this major initiative."
Golf is a developed sport in many countries around the world, Finchem pointed out, citing its popularity in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Ireland and Japan.
"[But] it is only a minor sport in many countries, including some of the larger developing countries, like China and India," he wrote. "If golf were an Olympic sport, the profile and importance of the game would increase."
But I would argue that it's more than just a minor sport in certain developing countries, like China and India, and that golfers are doing a good job on their own in generating worldwide interest.
Lorena Ochoa draws large Mexican crowds to LPGA Tour events, especially in the Southwest. Argentina's Angel Cabrera won the U.S. Open last year. India's Jeev Milkha Singh won two European Tour events in 2006, and that circuit played its first two events in his home country this season, with Indian golfer S.S.P. Chowrasia winning the first. Phil Mickelson flew home about $900,000 richer after winning the HSBC Champions Tournament in China last November. And golfers from eight different countries have already won on the PGA Tour this season.
It would be easy to create an Olympic golf tournament that awards individual medals, but not team medals. It would look like a typical event: 72 holes of stroke play, with gold, silver and bronze medals awarded to the top three finishers. Playoffs would break ties.
Participants could be decided by the world rankings, with a limit placed on the number of players allowed from each country to prevent, for example, a glut of American men and South Korean women in the competition.
It would be harder to award team medals. For example, as Best E Casino golf editor Jim Brighters pointed out: "Who would join Vijay Singh on the team? The golf pro at the only course in Fiji?"
Which is why golf would have to resemble the Olympic tennis program, which awards only individual medals (it awards two of each medal for the doubles competition, but there isn't really a corollary for golf, unless the Olympics included stroke and team match play competitions, which it won't).
So Americans like Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson, South Africans like Ernie Els and Trevor Immelman and Australians like Adam Scott and Geoff Ogilvy would be competing against each other, not with each other. But they would still be competing, in a larger sense, on the same teams, vying for medals that would count towards their countries' overall totals.
It remains to be seen, however, if the top men's and women's golfers in the world would be interested in competing in the Olympics.
In November 2000, while Woods was at an engagement in London, he met British gold medalist rowers Steven Redgrave and Matthew Pinsent. Pinsent put his medal around Woods' neck.
"I would like to see golf in the Olympics," Woods said at the time. "It would be exciting for all the fans who watch golf."
Then there is the matter of scheduling. August is a busy time for the world's major golf tours, particularly in the United States with the PGA Championship and the beginning of the new FedEx Cup playoffs.
Finchem pointed towards the tours cooperating to adjust their schedules for the Olympics. And if you think that's a big obstacle to overcome, I only have to remind you that they came together to implement a worldwide anti-doping policy last September.
"We need to work together to make the necessary changes," Finchem wrote.
The final obstacle would be finding a host course for Olympic golf. While it's customary for cities to build arenas for other sports, designing and building a golf course would present any number of problems.
Unless, that is, there are already courses to choose from.
Among the cities being considered for the 2016 Games are Chicago, Madrid, Rio de Janeiro and Tokyo. I'd be willing to bet that a plane ride to any of those places would produce a nice aerial view of a golf course.
From inside the plane.
