Golf Seeks a Spot on the Olympic Calendar

CHASKA, Minn., Aug. 12 -- Back in 1904, when the Summer Olympics were held in St. Louis, golf was among the sports on the program. It was dropped by 1908, and has not appeared since.

That, though, could change in 2016. The International Olympic Committee will vote Thursday in Berlin on which sports to add for the Summer Games in seven years. Golf's bid is considered a strong one, and it has the backing of all the major international tours -- as well as the world's best player.

"Golf is a truly global sport, and I think it should have been in the Olympics a while ago," Tiger Woods said at Hazeltine National Golf Club. "If it does get in, I think it would be great for golf and especially some of the other smaller countries that are now emerging in golf."

Should golf be approved, there would be 72-hole stroke-play tournaments for men and women, with 60 players in each field. Under the current plan, the top 15 players in the world would be automatically eligible. Woods is among the players here who not only enthusiastically support the idea, but also said they would play.

"I'd love to be an Olympian," said Irishman Padraig Harrington. "Doesn't that sound good? Imagine us being Olympic athletes."

A New Perspective

Phil Mickelson is back in a major championship field after skipping the British Open to be with his wife, Amy, who has breast cancer. Mickelson's mother also learned she has breast cancer earlier in the summer, giving him a completely different perspective on his year. Both women, he said, are expected to recover from the disease.

"It's been an interesting year, and we've had some highs and lows," Mickelson said Wednesday, after playing his first practice round of the week at Hazeltine. "I think that we'll have some more highs and lows for the next year or two. I think in the end, everything's going to be fine. But right now, I think things are day-to-day for us -- that's both golf and not golf."

Mickelson said he would like to play in the four season-ending FedEx Cup events, the PGA Tour's equivalent of the playoffs, and then also play in the Presidents Cup in October. . . .

Rees Jones, the course architect who remodeled Hazeltine, spent time at Bethesda's Congressional Country Club as the 2011 U.S. Open site overhauls its greens and moves tees back to make it a tougher test.

"It's going really well," Jones said, "and I just love that golf course so much."