Bryson DeChambeau missing the Summer Games is the right decision

Lina Portman2 weeks ago

0 3 minutes read

When selecting the four golfers who will represent the United States at the Summer Olympics in Paris next month, it technically doesn't matter whether a golfer plays on the PGA Tour, the LIV Tour, the DP World Tour or your mini -local golf. tour events. At the moment, the game's policy does not involve the International Olympic Committee or the International Golf Federation.

But if that's true, how could US Open winner and PGA runner-up Bryson DeChambeau not make Team USA?

The answer is simple, but with a complicated history.

Indeed, DeChambeau will not represent the United States in Paris. Instead, the four Americans will be Scottie Scheffler, Patrick Cantlay, reigning Tokyo Games gold medalist Xander Schauffele and 2023 US Open champion Wyndham Clark.

More: One year later, PGA Tour/PIF deal still not in place despite reports of progress

These are the top four Americans in the latest Official World Golf Rankings, and this week's rankings determine which golfers will be among the 60 players at the Summer Olympics. One thing to remember is that no country is allowed to have more than four players on a team, allowing more countries to be represented at the Games.

This is where politics comes in. DeChambeau is the fifth American in the OWGR, even though he is 10th overall. But DeChambeau has only earned ranking points in three tournaments this year: the Masters, the PGA Championship and the U.S. Open. He has only earned points in the four majors in 2023. That's because DeChambeau can't play PGA Tour events because he plays on the LIV Tour instead.

I never got the points

LIV Tour events do not award any OWGR points to players, which has been true since LIV began in 2022. The OWGR folks have significant issues with how LIV Tour fields are populated, how a player can qualify for this tour and how a player is kicked from events when other players have been brought in to play. LIV golf officials repeatedly denounced the lack of ranking points, but LIV players were never promised that such points would come to their tour despite their protests. Nothing has changed in this regard.

So DeChambeau, suddenly a very popular player who inspired chants of “USA!” UNITED STATES! USA” at the US Open last week, is absent from the Olympics even though it's easy to say he could easily replace Clark or even Cantlay on the US team.

However, whether this is fair or not is not really part of the debate. Some believe the rules need to change if players like DeChambeau and Brooks Koepka at the 2023 PGA Championship win major titles, proving their prowess in the lead-up to the Olympics. Others believe Koepka and DeChambeau made their choices knowing that world ranking points likely wouldn't come anytime soon on this tour.

Based on the rules, or actually a few different sets of rules, DeChambeau is not an Olympian. What would be unfair would be to rewrite the rules on Sunday night because a popular player won on Sunday afternoon. In that regard, DeChambeau missing the Olympics is the right thing for the Games.

Several questions remain about whether Team USA or the Olympics could have found a way to get DeChambeau into the Paris Games. In the grand scheme of things, do the Olympics measure up to one of the four major tournaments in men's golf? Or the Champions Tour or the Players Championship? It is likely that the two gold medalists from the last two Olympics (Schauffele and Justin Rose) would praise the Olympics, but would not measure them by their victories at major championships.

Second, will this debate still matter in 2028, when the Games take place in Los Angeles? If players and officials are to be believed, negotiations to reunite the game are ongoing and progressing, albeit at a slow pace. It's impossible to believe that the division in golf will still exist in 2028, when another U.S. Olympic team is assembled. So these might be the only Olympics affected by the PGA Tour/LIV debate.

There was much discussion when women's basketball star Caitlyn Clark was left off the U.S. women's team for this year's Olympics, with critics saying it hurt the ability to grow the game and attract more viewers to the Olympics. But Clark's omission was made by a selection committee. DeChambeau's absence in Paris was because there were strict rules and some calculations involved, and DeChambeau did not play by the rules.

It will be a little less interesting on the Paris golf course without DeChambeau, but he has always been far from making Team USA, even with a US Open title under his belt.

I never got the points

Lina Portman

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