Bubba Watson headlines a weak men’s Olympic golf field but LPGA stars hope to turn gold into cash

Good news! After more than a 100-year absence, golf is back in the Olympics for the first time since the St. Louis games in 1904.

Bad news? The men’s competition may be the one single event most indicative of the massive, systemic problems with these Rio Olympics — and the problems threatening golf’s inclusion back into the games go beyond 2020 in Tokyo.

The format is uninteresting, and most of the world’s best male players won’t be there. The women, however, are all ready to compete for the gold. The men’s competition will tee off first, running from Thursday, Aug. 11 through Sunday, Aug. 14. The women’s competition will follow the week after, but start on a Wednesday, going from Aug. 17-20 on the same Gil Hanse-designed course.

To fully understand why golf’s reintroduction to the Olympics hasn’t gone as planned, you’ll have to go back to the late-aughts to get the full picture. Before golf was officially added back into the games in October 2009, the IOC sought assurances from the game’s best players that they would be in attendance for the event. Those players were happy to provide such guarantees, provided they’d have some feedback in how it would be structured. These were somewhat easy concessions for both sides to make to get another high-profile event included into the golf schedule and into the Olympics.

Problem is, the world’s top players in 2009 aren’t the world’s top players in 2016. Of the world’s top 15 in the Official World Golf Rankings at the time of golf’s re-acceptance, only two remain there in 2016 — Henrik Stenson and Sergio Garcia. Both are in the field in Brazil, and are arguably the two biggest favorites to take home gold in the event. For the most part, 2009-era stars like Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson, who would’ve relished winning an Olympic medal, aren’t in the field.

But for most of the rest of the world’s top players, playing Olympic golf looked more like a good idea on paper but a bad idea in reality as the games grew closer. The format, a 72-hole stroke play event, wasn’t all that compelling. The method of qualification would leave many of the game’s best players at home, leading to a fairly weak, small event. The schedule changes to squeeze in the August games created a manic and jam-packed summer golf schedule, with three major championships occurring in a seven-week period. That kind of worldwide travel is something few players in the world have ever had to experience -- and a recipe for unending jet lag for the game’s most important events. And that’s all before Brazil’s oft-discussed infrastructure and health problems came to the forefront.

Most of the world’s best players — like Jason Day and Dustin Johnson -- specifically cited the Zika threat as the reason for opting out, but other factors above clearly played a role. Jordan Spieth was torn over his decision, citing general “health reasons” as the explanation for not attending. If taken for their word, the issues with Olympic golf may be transient and will be resolved by the time we get to Tokyo in 2020. Of course, other top players were more candid. Adam Scott came right out and said he just didn’t care about Olympic golf. Rory McIlroy threw haymakers at the movement when he said he’d only be watching the Olympic events “that matter” -- not golf.

Here’s a list of players who passed on the Olympics in Rio (world ranking at the time of their announcement):

Jason Day (No. 1) -- Australia
Dustin Johnson (No. 2) -- United States
Jordan Spieth (No. 3) -- United States
Rory McIlroy (No. 3) -- Northern Ireland
Adam Scott (No. 8) -- Australia
Branden Grace (No. 11) -- South Africa
Louis Oosthuizen (No. 14) -- South Africa
Hideki Matsuyama (No. 17) -- Japan
Charl Schwartzel (No. 23) -- South Africa
Shane Lowry (No. 25 -- Ireland
Marc Leishman (No. 37) -- Australia
K.T. Kim (No. 41) -- South Korea
Francesco Molinari (No. 56) -- Italy
Hideto Tanihara (No. 69) -- Japan
Graeme McDowell (No. 73) -- Northern Ireland
Victor Dubuisson (No. 78) -- France
Matt Jones (No. 84) -- Australia
Miguel Angel Jimenez (No. 166) -- Spain
Vijay Singh (No. 210) -- Fiji
Brendon de Jonge (No. 319) -- Zimbabwe
Angelo Que (No. 320) -- Philippines
Camilo Villegas (No. 322) -- Colombia
Tim Wilkinson (No. 340) -- New Zealand

There’s no right or wrong answer here. If you want to play Olympic golf, awesome — it’ll be fun for fans and players. If you don’t, it’s fine. Professional male golfers might have more leverage over the IOC than any other group. The possible indirect financial gain that other Olympic athletes rely on to put bread on the table isn’t really important to golfers, since sponsors keep the coffers full year-round. And unlike basketball athletes, the games don’t fall in the sports’ offseason -- they literally had to move one of the four biggest dang tournaments of the year to even squeeze in the event.

But, with all that said, there are still some reasons to watch among the athletes who will be present in the men’s golf field in Rio.

Hey, the good thing about this unique once-every-four-years tournament where players will drape themselves in national colors is that it will be something different than what’s seen on the PGA Tour every week, right? Wrong!

Instead of a compelling match-play singles bracket, or a high-school/college golf style 5-for-4 scores team event, we’re gonna get the same 72-hole stroke play event we get every week. That could be fine; golf’s had plenty of drama this season. But consider the differences between the 60-man Olympic field and, say, the 144-man field in The Players Championship. In a tournament like The Players, you’re guaranteed basically the world’s top 50 players, the top 125 from the PGA Tour, and previous tournament winners.

Due to the qualification criteria, the Olympic field will range from the British Open champ to dudes who play on the Challenge Tour — Europe’s equivalent to the minor league Web.com Tour. And since it’s just 60 players, less than half of a normal Tour event, there won’t be as many individuals to give the tournament the depth and drama it needs to be compelling over four rounds. It’s a recipe for large gaps in scoring, rather than players bunched together, when it comes time for the final round in Rio.

This was the biggest miss by the organizing body that put golf back in the Olympics. There were so many ways to get creative and switch up the format or make it some type of team competition. Instead, it’s just a four-round, 72-hole stroke play event with no real team aspect involved.

With all that said, there are still compelling names and storylines at the top of the Olympic golf field. Many of the stars who committed to Rio were, arguably, ones who would benefit most from the impact a gold medal would have on their career or legacy. Before his historic performance at The Open, Henrik Stenson was one of those players with the major championship box left unchecked on his resume. It’s hard to go with anyone besides the Swede as the favorite.

There might be no player more perfectly cut out for the Olympics than Sergio Garcia. The Spaniard’s legacy as one of Europe’s great Ryder Cuppers is secure, and he jumped at the opportunity to represent Spain in Rio. Nothing would possibly be more Sergio than winning the first Olympic gold medal in golf in 100 years, with other big stars on the sideline.

Americans Rickie Fowler, Patrick Reed, and Matt Kuchar fit this mold and will be favorites too. Danny Willett and Justin Rose will come to Rio as Top 15 players with major championships in tow. Germany’s two-time major winner Martin Kaymer is rounding back into form after swing struggles. Argentina’s Emiliano Grillo will be South America’s best hope to take home a medal.

Oh, and Bubba Watson will be there, too — and he might be the best player in the field. Which will be, well, something!

Here’s the final 60-man list for Rio:

Of course, none of these players have seen this brand new Gil Hanse golf course, so chances are it’ll be a total crapshoot. Only 9 Brazilians partook in a test event in March, and Adilson Da Silva — Brazil’s representative in the field -- wasn’t one of them.

Gold: Sergio Garcia, Spain

Silver: Emiliano Grillo, Argentina

Bronze: Patrick Reed, USA

Denmark (Soren Kjeldsen, Thorbjorn Olesen)

Rickie Fowler, USA

Why in the name of Babe Zaharias would anyone — especially a woman — want to go to Rio, what with the security issues, government on the brink of collapse and the Zika virus? Interestingly, while so many top male players are skipping Rio, only one elite woman — South Africa’s Lee-Anne Pace — will give the Summer Games a pass. And it was with a heavy heart that she took her name out of consideration for a spot on her national team.

The reason for this particular gender gap is really rather simple. The men don’t need the exposure (either to the crime/environmental hazards/Zika, or to the world), while LPGA players hope that showcasing their skills on the global stage will boost interest in their game and themselves, and thus, the prize money they play for almost every week in near anonymity compared to their male colleagues.

Consider that world No. 1 and top money winner Lydia Ko has earned $2,255,376 for her four wins and 11 top-10 finishes this year — and that her PGA Tour counterpart Jason Day made nearly that amount ($1.9 million) just for winning The Players Championship.

“I would say the PGA Tour, where it’s at now, it’s probably one of the most popular tours on the planet,” 2012 LPGA Championship winner Shanshan Feng, who will represent China in Rio, told the New York Times recently. “The LPGA’s really trying hard to let people know about us, to see us more on TV, to show them how good we are. Being part of the Olympics, it’s a very great platform to show off.”

Unlike the men, who will cram the Olympics into an already hectic 2016 schedule that includes a tournament (the John Deere Classic) being played opposite the same weekend of the Rio event, the women have the “luxury” of taking a two-week hiatus between tour events to accommodate the games.

Then there’s the question of medal or major? Any male golfer who contends he would rather win the gold than the Masters, U.S. Open, Open Championship or PGA Championship probably couldn’t pass a polygraph test.

The excitement among the women for standing on the platform while their countries’ anthems play, however, is palpable. “Winning a gold medal would be up there with winning a major championship to me,” Team USA golfer Stacy Lewis told the Times, “and that’s the difference of the men versus the women.”

Gregory Shamus/Getty Images

Just like on tour, the Rio field will be chasing Ko, who, despite her lofty standing atop the Rolex Rankings, still lacks the name recognition worldwide of even so-so players on the men’s side. The golfer who has sewn up just about every “youngest ever” category in golf — for both sexes — is psyched to win the gold. And while such a feat would certainly enhance the legacy of the 19-year-old, two-time major winner, it would do even more for her adopted country.

“For Lydia to achieve a gold in an individual sport, and especially being a female,” fellow Kiwi Frank Nobilo said on Golf Channel, “it would change the game in New Zealand … If Lydia’s to do well, they will start to put money where they should, and it will all be in ladies’ golf.”

No pressure, though, Lydia!

If anyone can shoulder the burden of carrying the women’s game, it’s the gracious and mellow Ko, whose on-course smile no matter the situation Jordan Spieth can only envy.

She’ll also have company, as second-ranked Brooke Henderson, a hockey-loving Canadian, is an up-and-comer with potential star power and a laid-back, affable demeanor similar to that of Ko. The competitiveness of Norway’s Suzann Pettersen (remember last year’s Solheim Cup “concession” kerfuffle?) and Lewis of the U.S. could spark some fireworks, which would only stoke the interest in the women’s game.

Here’s the final 60-woman list for Rio:

Gold: Lydia Ko, New Zealand

Silver: Brooke Henderson, Canada

Bronze: Ariya Jutanugarn, Thailand

Darkhorse: Laetitia Beck, Israel

Most likely disappointment: Stacy Lewis, USA