SAINT-QUENTIN-EN-YVELINES, France — The men’s Olympic golf competition has assembled the strongest field for the Paris Games, but don’t be fooled into thinking they’re the best.
The most glaring absence is Bryson DeChambeau, who is a U.S. Open champion when he’s not creating YouTube content with former President Donald Trump.
Last year, DeChambeau shot a 58 on the LIV Golf Circuit, tied for sixth at the Masters, finished runner-up by one stroke at the PGA Championship and took his second U.S. Open title from Rory McIlroy with an up-and-down shot from 55 yards on the final hole at Pinehurst No. 2.
But two years ago, DeChambeau decided to move to the Saudi Arabia-backed LIV Golf in exchange for a signing bonus roughly five times his career winnings on the PGA Tour. LIV Golf doesn’t award world ranking points; DeChambeau earned points only from the 11 tournaments he played in over his two-year Official World Golf Rankings period, mostly majors.
The Olympics use the OWGR to determine who can compete.
Therein lies the problem.
DeChambeau was ranked 210th in the world before the Masters. He’s currently ranked 10th, not far behind at Le Golf National.
“This is the state of golf right now. It’s not fair,” said Mexico’s Carlos Ortiz, one of LIV Golf’s original members.
“Especially for the Olympics, you want to have the best golfers here, but politics somehow control things,” he said. “I still feel that there are golfers who should be here who can’t be here because of what’s happened. I think the Olympics should be absolutely neutral.”
What happened is LIV.
The Saudi Arabian-funded league spent more than $2 billion to poach players from the PGA Tour. The OWGR doesn’t award points to the league because it’s a closed league with the same players (54 this year) playing the entire season. The OWGR found it difficult to evaluate a league with players who don’t play against anyone else in the world except four times a year.
The fact that DeChambeau is American doesn’t help him either.
“We don’t even have a No. 9 ranked player here,” Ireland’s Shane Lowry countered. “The U.S. team is a hard team to build.”
Each country can send up to four players who are ranked in the top 15 in the world. The U.S. has four of the top six. Lawrie was referring to Patrick Cantlay, who was ranked ninth a month ago but is now eighth.
DeChambeau was next in line, needing to win two majors to qualify for the Olympics. This is the predicament of LIV golfers, especially Americans.
“Even if you have the fifth-best sprinter in the world, if you’re from a certain country you can’t compete,” McIlroy said. “I think that’s how Olympic qualification works. It’s not just golf, it’s every sport.”
And it will be, because there really is no better solution to explain not just the PGA Tour, but golf as a whole, than the world rankings.
That’s why 60 athletes from 34 countries will compete. Eight of the world’s top 10 will compete in Paris, making it the strongest field in Olympic history.
The strongest fields will be at the PGA Championship, followed by the U.S. Open and British Open, which will also feature LIV players who have qualified through performances in major tournaments or through qualifiers.
The Olympics have five rings instead of four major events.
Jon Rahm signed with LIV last December ranked No. 2 in the world and has established himself well in the world rankings, so he hasn’t fallen far down the rankings yet.
Australia’s Cameron Smith won the British Open at St. Andrews in 2022 and is ranked No. 2 in the world. He heads to LIV a month later. He has three titles at LIV (none this year) and is currently ranked No. 84 in the world. There are four other Australians ranked higher than him, all in the top 50.
Rahm and Ortiz support leaving the decision to national Olympic committees.
“Each country should be allowed to choose for themselves,” Rahm said. “There needs to be some guidelines, but the U.S. basketball team has the freedom to choose whoever they want.”
One question is which countries will select the 60 players. Argentina was not represented in the Tokyo Olympics.
In fact, Ortiz is an example of how world rankings are helping LIV fighters.
In the OWGR formula, their divisor (number of tournaments played) is the smallest, so it doesn’t take long for them to climb the rankings. Ortiz was ranked 1,286th in the world when he won the Asian Tour’s International Series in Oman. He rose to 237th, effectively qualifying for Paris.
David Puig is the most notable contender among the seven LIV golfers competing in the Olympics.
The 22-year-old Spanish player, a recent graduate of Arizona State University, had just joined LIV and began traveling the world to compete in Asian Tour events to fit into LIV’s schedule. In four months, he traveled more than 50,000 miles and performed so well that he rose from 245th to 133rd in the world rankings and earned himself second place for Spain.
“I tried to get as many points as possible and I’m happy that it paid off,” Puig said. “I’m very proud to be selected for this team.”
DeChambeau took the noble path and just wanted to heal the divisions in golf, but that wasn’t in sight any time soon. This was the path he chose to take. For now, he’ll return to YouTube content before wrapping up the year with LIV Golf, where there will be no medals awarded, just prize money.
___
AP Summer Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/2024-paris-olympic-games
