Olympic Golf: Who Fills the Vacated Spots?

As more and more top players drop out, Olympic golf continues to suffer. Who will replace these absent stars?

Believe it or not, there’s already a pecking order for who will be allowed to play Olympic golf if the top golfers from each country elect not to participate. There are five back-ups for each player.

For example, when Jason Day, Adam Scott and Marc Lieshman decided not to participate in the Olympic golf event, the next candidate for Australia became Marcus Fraser, followed by Matt Jones, John Senden and Steven Bowditch.

If Jordan Spieth decides not to go, the next in line to take his spot are Patrick Reed, Brooks Koepka, Matt Kuchar, Zach Johnson and Jim Furyk. Those same five players would also step in, in that order, should Rickie Fowler decide not to go.

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To date, Dustin Johnson and Bubba Watson are the qualified Americans who have indicated they are making the trip to represent the U.S.

With South African Branden Grace having withdrawn, there is an opportunity for Brandon Stone to play Olympic golf, followed by George Coetzee, Dean Burmester and Retief Goosen.

With Rory McIlroy and Shane Lowry staying home, the next in line for Ireland are Padraig Harrington and Seamus Power. However, in some strange Olympic quirk, if both Harrington and Power opt to stay home, the country of Ireland loses its spot to Wen-Tang Lin of Taiwan, followed by Jose-Filipe Lima of Portugal.

What? Exactly. In some instances, strangely enough, the back-up candidates may not be from the same country as the golfer who qualified.

Lin and Lima are the back-ups for many golfers. They are in line if Danny Lee of New Zealand drops out and countrymen Mike Hendry and Josh Geary follow suit.

Lin and Lima could also end up being the players who get in if the top three Chinese golfers, Wu Ashun, W.C. Liang and Ze-cheng Du, opt out.

However, the golfer with the best chance of nudging his way into the Olympic golf competition is Wen-Tang Lin. Right now, despite his position of 349th in the world ranking, he’s the back-up candidate for twenty golfers in the Olympic field. Twenty!

If any of these players — Emiliano Grillo, Joost Luiten, Thomas Pieters, Fabian Gomez, Francesco Molinari, Richardo Gouvela, Miguel Tabuena, Fabrizio Zanotti, Nicolas Colsearts, Danny Chia, Jhonattan Vegas, Camilo Villegas, Felipe Aguilar, Angelo Que, Siddikur Raham, Brendon de Jonge, Cheng Tsung Pan, Rodolfo Cazaubon, Gavin Kyle Green, Nino Bertasio — have second thoughts, he’s in.

If two of them drop out, then Lima is next in line for 18 of the 20, while Angel Cabrera is after Lin for Grillo and Gomez. Cabrera’s position behind Lin is due to his world ranking of 350th, but it seems a little odd that someone from another country would get the spot of an Argentinian when there is another Argentinian available to participate.

The Olympics, regrettably, continue to baffle when it comes to golf.

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