The world’s best golfers won’t be in Rio, so golf may go the way of Olympic soccer

When golf returns to the Olympic Games for the first time in 112 years on Thursday, the majority of the world’s elite players won’t return with it.

The top four players in the PGA Tour’s official world golf rankings passed on the opportunity to win the first links-based gold medal since 1904. That means superstars like Jason Day, Jordan Spieth and Rory McIlroy will be watching the historic stroke-play tournament from home. Instead, it will be up to veterans like Bubba Watson and Henrik Stenson to make people care about golf against the backdrop of the world’s biggest week of athletic competition.

Here’s where the world’s top 15 golfers currently stand. Eight of them won’t be teeing off at the Olympic golf course at Reserva de Tijuca in Brazil.

That’s a far cry from the lineup Olympic officials had envisioned when they approved the game’s return to the Games in 2009. Back then, players like Tiger Woods, Ian Poulter and Mickelson were among the way-too-early gold medal bets. Now the trio of Stenson, Watson and Rickie Fowler are the presumptive favorites.

That’s both an opportunity and a crisis for Olympic golf.

The first Olympic golf tournament in 112 years may have been derailed by Zika concerns and scheduling issues, but it may be the launching point from which a new star emerges. The void at the top of the card could be filled by a player like Stenson or Watson; the ensuing gold medal could validate their status as golf elites. Awarding the top spot to an established, but still young star would boost the status of the event, create storylines for future Olympiads and tie national pride into the sport in a way the game’s majors cannot. Wouldn’t Sweden, a country with one summer gold medal since 2008, rally around Stenson?

That kind of pride could also break an unknown player into golf’s stratosphere and provide the kind of confidence and legitimacy that creates a star. The odds of players like Emiliano Grillo or Thorbjørn Olesen medalling went way up when the world’s top golfers decided to sit this one out. There’s always demand for young, talented golfers on the worldwide scene. A rising star crowned during the world’s most prestigious sports event could help rise the tide that lifts international golf.

Of course, there’s also the opposite side of the coin. Olympic golf could follow the path of Olympic soccer and settle into a role as the little brother to its sport’s major tournaments. Gold medals are nice, but they don’t inspire the kind of pride -- and more importantly, viewership -- that winning a World Cup brings. Golf doesn’t have the kind of singular mass the WC does, but its regular schedule of majors may be even more draining when it comes to demand for another four days of determining golf’s top player.

Rory McIlroy already suggested golf at the Games didn’t matter. And victory from a player coming from the European or Asian Tours could further the stigma suggesting this isn’t a top-tier tournament. When it comes to Olympic golf, the chicken is laying its egg on the top of the roof. The outcome of this week’s 72-hole tournament will be the gust of wind that decides which way it rolls; into obscurity, or towards prosperity.