2016 Olympic Games Creates Schedule Snarl for Golf

The 2016 Olympic Games are proving a challenge to the world-wide, multi-tour golf schedule.

Rio is racing to be ready to receive the 2016 Olympians — which will include golfers for the first time since 1904 — and the golf world is threading its way through a series of schedule snarls in order to be available tee it up in Rio. The men need to have an open spot in their 2016 calendars: August 11-14, 2016. Therein lies yet another conundrum in the Gordian Knot that is the 2016 PGA schedule.

Read More on Golf and the 2016 Rio Olympics

The 2016 WGC-Bridgestone Invitational has been moved from its traditional August spot on the PGA calendar to June 29-July 3, snuggled between the US Open (June 16-19) and The Open Championship (July 14-17), in order to open up a space for the men’s Olympic competition. It’s a one-time shift and the Bridgestone will revert to its traditional spot in 2017, the week before the PGA Championship, but change is never smooth and trouble-free and this particular change is reverberating well beyond next summer in Rio.

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Most immediately, the European Tour has stepped back from its co-sanction for the 2016 WGC-Bridgestone. Why? Because the new WGC-Bridgestone date is also the date of the French Open, the longest-running national open in Continental Europe, which will be played for the 100th time in 2016.

Why is this a problem? It’s certainly not the only case of two professional events sanctioned by two different Tours being contended simultaneously. Absent the traditional co-sanctioning of the WGC-Bridgestone, however, European Tour players won’t earn points for the event — including qualifying for the 2016 Ryder Cup — and winnings won’t count toward the Race to Dubai.

Graeme McDowell. Mandatory Credit: Steve Flynn-USA TODAY Sports

Two-time French Open champion Graeme McDowell and Ian Poulter have both indicated their intention to take a pass on the 2016 WGC-Bridgestone in favor of the French Open and, with an increased purse and renovations on Le Golf National Albatross track completed, other European Tour players will likely follow suit.

McDowell explained the dilemma and his choice:

"“It’s a tournament which I want to be loyal to because of how good they’ve been to me and how much success has been there. The Ryder Cup race is going to be heating up. There’s going to be a lot of things going on this time next year.”"

This situation puts newly-minted 2015 WGC-Bridgestone Invitational champion Shane Lowry in a Catch-22 spot. He’ll surely be present to defend his first pro title, and in so doing he’ll forfeit 2016 Ryder Cup qualifying points he might have earned at the French Open.

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It seems a shame that PGA and European Tour officials have been unable to reconcile the scheduling complications resulting from golf’s return to the Olympics. It’s a much-anticipated opportunity to further internationalize the sport and to grow the game in new and fresh venues.

There’s much to be gained at both the professional and the recreational levels of play by a coordinated globalized competition schedule.

In golf, as in life, there are times when compromise may be the wiser route toward crafting solutions to an apparent impasse that serve the greater good. This, apparently, is not one of those moments for either the PGA or the European Tours.

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