This week’s golf world cup will offer an opportunity to see what to expect when golf returns to the Olympics in 2016 at Rio de Jeneiro.
The World Cup begins Thursday at Royal Melbourne and will have its traditional team component – whereas the Olympics will not have a team competition – and the situation involving Britain and Ireland is much different, which raises an interesting query for Rory McIlroy. Which country will he represent in 2016 in Brazil – Britain or Ireland?Individual stroke play and world ranking will help determine who plays and, for the most part, players will play with their country of origin’s flag on their golf bag. After that, the similarities begin to fade.
At the Olympics, England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland compete under Britain’s flag. However, at the World Cup, England, Scotland, and Wales will compete as separate
countries. To make things even more complicated, at the World Cup, it’s the tradition for Ireland and Northern Ireland to compete together as Ireland. McIlroy will not be competing at Melbourne this week, but is confident it’s still his choice as to whom to play for in the 2016 Olympics.
For other international players at the World Cup, the rules are more cut-and-dry, as they use the same ranking format that will be used to determine Olympic seeds.
Players within the top 15 of the World Golf Rankings gain access to the World Cup, with the exception that there will be no more than four golfers per country until the field of 60 is about filled. Matt Kuchar, who will be representing the US this week, along with Kevin Streelman, won the last World Cup in 2011 with Gary Woodland. That tournament held in Haiku, China, featured four-ball competitions on Thursday and Saturday with foursomes on Friday and Sunday.
Individual stroke-play was instituted this year for all four rounds to mirror the Olympic format, and the best two scores from each country will dictate the team placings.
Twenty-five teams are set to play, including Francesco Molinari and Matteo Manassero, representing Italy, Graeme McDowell and Shane Lowry representing Ireland, and the South Korean team K.J. Choi and Bae Sang-moon.
Fiji’s Vijay Singh, who finished third in the Australian Masters, will be one of fifteen competing exclusively in individual competition, which offers $7 million in prize money. The winning individual player gets $1.2 million while the winning team gets $600,000.
from Julian St Quinton http://julianstquinton.co.uk/2013/11/18/golf-world-cup-set-up-for-olympic-style-preview/
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