US Olympics Golf Team

[Pnwpingi210]

26 minutes ago, Rapidcat said:

 

And so changed the environment.

 

Things change. Perhaps The Olympics should have remained amateur?

The environment changed for a select 54 people.  The rest of the worlds golfers are playing by the same criteria.

[Rapidcat]

5 minutes ago, cdnglf said:

Ah, for the days of noble amateurs such as Vladislav Tretiak, Major in the Soviet Army (Ice Hockey Battalion)

 

Don't forget Croquet at the 1900 Paris Olympics:

 

Such a shame.

 

Things change.

[ronsc1985]

23 hours ago, Archimedes65 said:

 

Because golf is way different than track and field.  There is far more variability in performance in golf than there is in track.  You can’t just pick the results of one golf tournament and conclude that you’ve got the four best players for your country.

That makes no sense.

 

We pick our national champions i.e. US Open, US Am etc. by he results of one tournament as do most every golf organization.  In point of fact if you want your best shot a picking the best near term representatives, the latest results are a vastly superior  measure of current performance, not some composite tabulation over a long time frame.  

[Pnwpingi210]

25 minutes ago, ronsc1985 said:

That makes no sense.

 

We pick our national champions i.e. US Open, US Am etc. by he results of one tournament as do most every golf organization.  In point of fact if you want your best shot a picking the best near term representatives, the latest results are a vastly superior  measure of current performance, not some composite tabulation over a long time frame.  

August 19th , 2002.

 

you get to pick one golfer to represent the us in the in a world golf tournament.  If your golfer wins, you get 10 million bucks

 

who you picking?  Rich Beem?  Tiger woods?  Somebody else?

[mosesgolf]

4 minutes ago, Pnwpingi210 said:

August 19th , 2002.

 

you get to pick one golfer to represent the us in the in a world golf tournament.  If your golfer wins, you get 10 million bucks

 

who you picking?  Rich Beem?  Tiger woods?  Somebody else?

Ouch!!  This brings back painful memories 😆 

[cdnglf]

29 minutes ago, Pnwpingi210 said:

August 19th , 2002.

 

you get to pick one golfer to represent the us in the in a world golf tournament.  If your golfer wins, you get 10 million bucks

 

who you picking?  Rich Beem?  Tiger woods?  Somebody else?

Who did better on the final hole? That’s the very latest result.

[mosesgolf]

11 minutes ago, cdnglf said:

Who did better on the final hole? That’s the very latest result.

Crazy that Michael Campbell and Rich Beem got Tiger in his prime.  Sometimes folks catch lightning in a bottle for a week/round.

[Ferguson]

3 hours ago, Rapidcat said:

 

I didn't say you'd be watching the US 

 

Not so much watching the athletic games, but rather getting to "experience" the "games" of the olympic village.  You know what I am talking about. 

 

[Ferguson]

4 hours ago, Archimedes65 said:

 

Meh, I don’t have any interest in Olympic golf, nor do any of my buddies.  Won’t be watching it.  Don’t even think it should be an Olympic sport.

 

Agree. 

 

Bring back those sports that were dropped such as motorboat games or tug-of-war.

 

 

 

 

[Archimedes65]

1 hour ago, ronsc1985 said:

That makes no sense.

 

We pick our national champions i.e. US Open, US Am etc. by he results of one tournament as do most every golf organization.  In point of fact if you want your best shot a picking the best near term representatives, the latest results are a vastly superior  measure of current performance, not some composite tabulation over a long time frame.  

 

And representing the U.S.A., Russell Henley!…

[GoGoErky]

7 hours ago, Rapidcat said:

 

And so changed the environment.

 

Things change. Perhaps The Olympics should have remained amateur?

The environment didn’t change, golfers chased money on a tour that had no desire from the beginning to play by anyone’s rules.

 

You don’t change rules for the minority unless you are the USGA and R&A but that’s a different thread

The amateur aspect of the Olympics changed a long time ago and in some cases for the better. Why keep sending amateurs from a few countries to play against pros from others. Its the Olympics you want to showcase the best of the best around the world that are playing under some sort of recognized organization. 

[ronsc1985]

3 hours ago, Archimedes65 said:

 

And representing the U.S.A., Russell Henley!…

So you have no rational reason to use a long time frame ranking system. Got it.

[betarhoalphadelta]

On 6/18/2024 at 3:52 PM, Dutch1008 said:

 

I think it's fine to boost points for the majors or Players when you're talking about things like the FedEx Cup points list. I don't think that manipulation is warranted when simply ranking players. 

 

For example, TPC Sawgrass is a major championship venue. Maybe you love it or hate it, but it certainly a more demanding and exacting test than a place like Valahalla. Further, prior to the LIV split, The Players was universally considered to be the strongest field in golf. No amateur exemptions or past their prime champs like the Masters. No collection of club pros like the PGA, no batch of open qualifiers like the USO or Open Championship. The Players was the top 150 humans walking the planet and competing on a major caliber course. With that backdrop, why would it garner fewer OWGR points than a major championship? It's statistically harder to win. 

 

That type of manipulation is fine, when it's used for qualification criteria and agreed to by the other professional tours and ruling bodies as part of OWGR. They've made a conscious decision to give extra rewards to players for their performance in majors. But I don't think it's fine when we're simply talking about who's the best golfer? Is X better than Y. Random manipulations in the data simply muddy that discussion.  

 

On 6/18/2024 at 5:02 PM, Dutch1008 said:

 

Both datagolf and OWGR already take field strength into account. OWGR adds an additional layer above and beyond the field strength for both Majors and The Players (although less so). It's an unnecessary manipulation justified by the "intangible" qualities of majors. A stats and data guy like Mark Brodie would never do such a thing to his data analysis. It's an artificial manipulation that doesn't need to be there.    

 

 

@Dutch1008, just thinking out loud / playing Devil's advocate here for a moment. Not a hill to die on. 

 

But in some way, wouldn't the US folks creating Olympic qualifying criteria actually PREFER a ranking system that values the "intangibles" of the most important events in a sport more highly than run of the mill tournaments? After all, if there is any actual real value to getting yourself "up" for big events and performing well under pressure in big events be important? The Olympics for most sports is the biggest of big events in the world. I'm sure for all players, winning a PGA Tour event is special. But winning a major or an Olympic gold medal is special in a much more unique way. So those who are proven to do well in majors maybe should have outsized relevance in Olympic selection criteria... If the OWGR aligns with that, all the better, right? 

 

Anyway, just spitballing here for conversation. 

[Dutch1008]

25 minutes ago, betarhoalphadelta said:

But in some way, wouldn't the US folks creating Olympic qualifying criteria actually PREFER a ranking system that values the "intangibles" of the most important events in a sport more highly than run of the mill tournaments? After all, if there is any actual real value to getting yourself "up" for big events and performing well under pressure in big events be important? The Olympics for most sports is the biggest of big events in the world. I'm sure for all players, winning a PGA Tour event is special. But winning a major or an Olympic gold medal is special in a much more unique way. So those who are proven to do well in majors maybe should have outsized relevance in Olympic selection criteria... If the OWGR aligns with that, all the better, right? 

 

Anyway, just spitballing here for conversation. 

 

I'm not opposed to it, I'm just not sure how to accurately quantify it. Part of me thinks that "pressure/enormity/importance/etc" is already captured into the numbers. The majors are going to have the strongest fields in golf, so the "field strength" adjustment that the tools use to weight the results is already accounted for. Additionally, the majors are typically some of the harder courses or harder setups that players face during a season. Strokes gained already solves for that. If you shoot a 68 at Pinehurst while the field averages 75, that +7 Strokes Gained is getting added to your ledger. If you shoot 68 at TPC Craig Ranch and the field average is 70, only +2 Strokes Gained is going into the formula. 

 

What I'm saying is that the datagolf numbers already tilt their weighting to those who perform best at the most competitive tournaments and at the toughest golf courses. Perhaps their weightings should be skewed more? Beats me. I just don't like the idea of arbitrarily adding something that you can't truly quantify. Perhaps someday Mark Brodie will partner with the folks at Whoop and figure out how to properly quantify Strokes Gained: Pressure.  

 

Additional food for thought, Tiger has won each of the majors at least 3x but has only won the Players Championship twice? Is the competition tougher at the players? Is the course harder? Even weirder, Tiger has won all 5 of the biggest events in golf multiple times, but has failed to win his hometown event at Riviera? Should RIv be considered the definitive test in golf? Or maybe, we simply shouldn't get hung up on small sample sizes and should look at a larger body of data when making decisions? You don't get to some deeper truth by cherry picking your data set.   

[widow-maker]

The IOC, with help from different governing bodies, set up the criteria to play Olympic golf.  It's not up to the individual countries to go off script and pick somebody else just because they're on a heater.  Now, the criteria can be changed after these Olympics and perhaps LIV players can be taken into consideration in the future.  But you can't just change qualification standards because Bryson just won the US Open and deserves to be considered one of the top 4 players in the US.  That's not how this works.  This is up to the IOC to either change or give each country's olympic committee the power in how they choose their entrants. 

[Archimedes65]

2 hours ago, ronsc1985 said:

So you have no rational reason to use a long time frame ranking system. Got it.

 

I’m sorry, avoiding having the 10th ranked U.S. player take one of the top four spots isn’t a rational reason?  😂

[mosesgolf]

53 minutes ago, Archimedes65 said:

 

I’m sorry, avoiding having the 10th ranked U.S. player take one of the top four spots isn’t a rational reason?  😂

Well Bryson is ranked 10th under a faulty ranking system.  In reality he should be ranked 4.  WC should do the honorable thing and step down.  😁

[Archimedes65]

1 minute ago, mosesgolf said:

Well Bryson is ranked 10th under a faulty ranking system.  In reality he should be ranked 4.  WC should do the honorable thing and step down.  😁

 

I’m referring to Russell Henley.  If we just went by the US Open results, he’d be on the team.  But he’s the 17th ranked overall, 10th ranked U.S., player right now.  Even lower if you included a few LIV players.  There is a better solution than just using OWGR, but just taking the results of the US Open is not it.

 

All the LIV players knew they were unlikely to make the US team when they jumped.  A reasonable target would be to target the next Olympics and work to get the qualification criteria changed in the intervening period.

[Rapidcat]

6 hours ago, GoGoErky said:

The environment didn’t change, golfers chased money on a tour that had no desire from the beginning to play by anyone’s rules.

 

You don’t change rules for the minority unless you are the USGA and R&A but that’s a different thread

The amateur aspect of the Olympics changed a long time ago and in some cases for the better. Why keep sending amateurs from a few countries to play against pros from others. Its the Olympics you want to showcase the best of the best around the world that are playing under some sort of recognized organization. 

 

Pro golfers chasing money, who would have thought that would happen, quelle horreur!

They're all chasing money, that's why they're pro golfers.

 

Maybe there's 200 or so top male pro golfers, c.40 of those have gone to LIV, that's a significant minority and enough to create an environment for change. Their inclusion's for this season incl Rahm, Hatton & Meronk, in the redundant OWGR they were top 5, 20 & 50 (from memory) at that time.

 

If it didn't matter and could just be ignored, there wouldn't be a 573 page thread on the topic on this forum with the majority of the posts from Voldemort League haters (who most apparently have never watched a shot hit in those events). 

 

You and I have different opinions on this situation, so be it.

 

Edited June 21 by Rapidcat

[GoGoErky]

6 hours ago, Rapidcat said:

 

Pro golfers chasing money, who would have thought that would happen, quelle horreur!

They're all chasing money, that's why they're pro golfers.

 

Maybe there's 200 or so top male pro golfers, c.40 of those have gone to LIV, that's a significant minority and enough to create an environment for change. Their inclusion's for this season incl Rahm, Hatton & Meronk, in the redundant OWGR they were top 5, 20 & 50 (from memory) at that time.

 

If it didn't matter and could just be ignored, there wouldn't be a 573 page thread on the topic on this forum with the majority of the posts from Voldemort League haters (who most apparently have never watched a shot hit in those events). 

 

You and I have different opinions on this situation, so be it.

 

Most of those guys that went were either at the end of their careers due to age or diminishing skills. Weatwood, Poulter, McDowell and so on. Others were good but not competitive week in and week out. They saw guaranteed money that was much larger than they would ever make in their entire pro career had they stayed on the pga tour and DPWT.

 

Also many knew their fate when they left because guys like DJ, Sergio and others who were the first to go were suspended and thus couldn’t earn points on the pga tour or DPWT. If you know your fellow members are suspended and you choose to leave as well you don’t get to cry that the system is unfair and you are losing points. Thats not taking personal responsibly for your actions, its being a spoiled crybaby who wants their cake and eat it too.

 

 

[Rapidcat]

1 minute ago, GoGoErky said:

Most of those guys that went were either at the end of their careers due to age or diminishing skills. Weatwood, Poulter, McDowell and so on. Others were good but not competitive week in and week out. They saw guaranteed money that was much larger than they would ever make in their entire pro career had they stayed on the pga tour and DPWT.

 

Also many knew their fate when they left because guys like DJ, Sergio and others who were the first to go were suspended and thus couldn’t earn points on the pga tour or DPWT. If you know your fellow members are suspended and you choose to leave as well you don’t get to cry that the system is unfair and you are losing points. Thats not taking personal responsibly for your actions, its being a spoiled crybaby who wants their cake and eat it too.

 

 

 

Fair comments, they don't contradict my thoughts.

[Fairways_and_Greens]

On 6/20/2024 at 8:33 AM, Rapidcat said:

 

And so changed the environment.

 

Things change. Perhaps The Olympics should have remained amateur?

I’d like to see 2 man team event with the pros.