An international field has gathered this week at Cog Hill
Golf & Country Club just outside of Chicago
for the third leg of the PGA Tour's FedEx Cup Playoffs - the BMW Championship. If
golf gets the nod as an Olympic sport to be included in the 2016 Summer Games
next month as is expected, this week's tournament could very well be a preview
of an Olympic golf event.
A week prior to ratifying the recommendation of golf as an Olympic sport, the International Olympic Committee will vote for the host city. Chicago is one of four finalists, along with Rio de Janeiro, Madrid and Tokyo. If both the Windy City and golf are successful in their efforts, Cog Hill is a likely choice for the event venue.
"I think that would be great," Tiger Woods told the media when asked about Cog Hill hosting the Olympic event in 2016 when he'll be 40. "I think you would have to have it on a public venue. I don't think you could have it at a country club. I think you'd have to have it at a public venue just because of what the nature of the Olympics is all about.
"Certainly this golf course is stand-alone in public venues here in the Chicago area," Woods added. "I don't know another golf course that could rival this one as far as difficulty, a public course."
Tiger's right about one thing, Cog Hill's No. 4 Course, know as "Dubsdread" would be the logical choice for Olympic golf in the Chicago area.
The course recently re-opened after a $5 million renovation, which closed Dubsdread for the entire 2008 season, led by "Open Doctor" Rees Jones was completed. Popular opinion says that the project was designed to bring the U.S. Open to Dubsdread, but as a writer for the Peoria Journal Star put it, "Quite a consolation prize, those five rings would be."
Jones renovation has paid immediate dividends. Golf Magazine's biennial ranking of the Top 100 Course in the U.S. was recently unveiled, and Dubsdread cracked the list at No. 87. With repositioned bunkers, rebuilt greens and nine new back tees, the course is certainly worthy of challenging the world's best.
But the thought of golf appearing on the Olympic stage at Dubsdread, or even one of Chicago's prestigious private tracks like Medinah, will be a consolation for fans of golf when compared to the possibility of having golf at Augusta National Golf Club during the 1996 Olympic Games.
I'm sure everyone remembers that the last time golf made a serious push for inclusion in the Olympics was prior to the 1996 Atlanta Games, when the Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games was headed by current Augusta National Chairman Billy Payne. The committee pitched golf at Augusta to the IOC, but the sport was left off the program.
Tiger has a valid point that a public golf course would be more of an accurate reflection of the Olympic spirit, but to bring the Olympic Games to Augusta National would've been truly a momentous event.
If Gun Fighting were introduced as an Olympic sport, we'd want to see it at the O.K. Coral, and if Ultimate Fighting ever makes the cut, house it in the Roman Coliseum.
I have a feeling that Olympic golf won't feel much different than the FedEx Cup Playoffs.