One of the consequences of Smith’s 2022 defection to LIV Golf—which had its application to receive Official World Golf Rankings points for its no-cut, 54-hole events denied in October—has been his plummet down the OWGR. The problem is, the Olympics uses the OWGR as a basis to determine who qualifies to compete in its event.

When Australian star Smith joined LIV in the fall of 2022, he was ranked No. 2 in the World and the reigning Open champion with six-time PGA Tour winner to his credit. Now, he’s 18th—and only after a runner-up the previous week in the Asian Tour’s Hong Kong Open.

Smith has performed admirably on his new tour and at the majors in 2023. He won LIVs events in London and Bedminster and finished second on its season-long points list. Smith also recorded top-10 finishes at the PGA Championship (T-9) at Oak Hill and the U.S. Open (fourth) at LACC this year.

But it may count for little if he doesn’t perform well in the 2024 majors, likely the only tournaments where he’ll play where he can earn ranking points. The Olympics will automatically take the top 15 golfers on the OWGR to Paris, with a maximum of four per country. Outside the top 15, two players per country can be selected up to filling the 60-player field.

As it stands on the rankings, Australia’s team would be Smith (18) and Jason Day (21). But as his ranking continues to drop, Smith could be overtaken by Day and possibly Cameron Davis (44) or Min Woo Lee (45). Both those Australians play on the PGA Tour and have a much easier path to improve their rankings. Smith, who played at the 2021 Olympics in Tokyo alongside Marc Leishman, desperately wants to compete in the Olympics again. The cut off for qualifying is June 17 for the men’s competition, the Monday after the end of the U.S. Open.

“I definitely want to be there, mate, 100 percent,” the 30-year-old said at this week’s Australian PGA Championship at Royal Queensland in Brisbane. “I know the criteria, I don’t know if that can change, but I’ve got these couple of events here [the Australian PGA and the Australian Open, which are co-sanctioned by the DP World Tour and therefore receive world ranking points] and probably more looks again in the [2024] majors, so hopefully I can keep that ranking up and wear the (Australian national) coat of arms on the chest again, it’s pretty special.”

A solution, albeit a taxing one, is to add more Asian Tour events to his 2024 schedule in the lead up to the June. LIV Golf has invested $300 million into the Asian Tour, which does receive World Ranking points. In turn, the tour created the International Series, which typically has a handful of LIV players at each of its events.

“Yeah, I think I would,” Smith said of adding Asian Tour events to his schedule. “But I think that’s a kind of wait and see type of thing. Hopefully, like you said, these couple of events down here can do plenty for me and those majors can definitely lift it up a lot.”

Image: Eurasia Sport Images

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The connection between golf and the Olympics is growing as the sport prepares to be part of a third straight Summer Games next year in Paris. in one year’s time, the first round of the 72-hole men’s competition gets underway at the Albatros course at Le Golf National (August 1-4), site of the 2018 Ryder Cup. The women’s tournament starts three days after the men’s event ends, August 7-10, before the closing ceremony on August 11.

Player interest in participating in the Olympics increased after the sport’s return to the competition took place in 2016 in Rio. Similarly, after the conclusion of the COVID-delayed Olympics in Tokyo in 2021, several high-profile players suggested the experience exceeded their expectations. Among them was Rory McIlroy.

“I made some [earlier] comments before that were probably uneducated and impulsive,” McIlroy said. “But coming here experiencing it, seeing, feeling everything that goes on, not just Olympic golf but just the Olympics in general, that sort of Olympic spirit’s definitely bitten me and I’m excited how this week’s turned out and excited for the future.”

McIlroy was part of a seven-way playoff for the bronze medal, won by Chinese Taipei’s CT Pan. “It makes me even more determined to go to Paris and try to pick one up,” McIlroy said. “It’s disappointing going away from here without any hardware, I’ve been saying all day I never tried so hard in my life to finish third.”

The trickiest part now is for the top men and women to figure out a way to fit preparation into their already packed tour schedules. The men’s Olympic competition will come less than two weeks after the conclusion of the Open Championship at Royal Troon. The women’s tournament will likely fall shortly after the Amundi Evian Championship, also in France, in July (officials dates have yet to be released), and the AIG Women’s Open at St Andrews scheduled for late August.

Qualifying for the 2024 Olympics began in July 2022, with golfers accumulating points in an official Olympics Ranking that essentially mirrors the men’s and women’s World Rankings. That provides another wrinkle on the men’s side: With golfers competing in the LIV Golf League not accumulating OWGR points, they also aren’t earning Olympic Ranking points either, making it more challenging for them to qualify for their country’s teams. (The qualifying period runs through June 17, 2024 for the men and June 24, 2024 for the women.)

So who will be competing in Paris? To get a glimpse at the possible teams for 2024, we applied the qualification criteria to the most recent Olympic rankings (July 23) and produced the full 60-player fields for the men’s and women’s tournaments.

Here a little refresher for how Olympic qualification works. These same rules apply to the men’s and women’s tournaments.

• • The total field is 60 players, with at least one spot held for a golfer from the host country (France) if one does not otherwise qualify.
• • No country can have more than four golfers competing.
• • All golfers ranked in the top 15 qualify, up to the four-golfer maximum for each country.
• • After the top 15 in the ranking, golfers ranked 16th and lower will qualify with no more than two players from any one country eligible to compete.

On the men’s side, only the United States has more than two golfers among the top 15 of the rankings (the Americans have nine as of July 24). So the first four — Scottie Scheffler, Patrick Cantlay, Xander Schauffele and Max Homa — would make the team, with the remaining players, Brian Harman, Wyndham Clark, Jordan Spieth, Brooks Koepka and Cameron Young, needing to improve their status if they want to be playing in Paris. Again the tricky part here for Koepka is that LIV golfers don’t receive OWGR points.

USA’s Xander Schauffele celebrates after winning the gold medal at Japan’s Kasumigaseki Country Club in August 2021. Yoshi Iwamoto

On the women’s side, the US is in a similar spot with three players among the top 15 of the women’s rankings: Nelly Korda, Lilia Vu and Allisen Corpuz.
In the men’s tournament, 31 golfers who competed in Tokyo also would be eligible for Paris, including Schauffele, the gold-medal winner, and Pan. For the women, Korda would be defending her gold and Lydia Ko would be eligible to try to claim a third medal after winning silver in 2016 and bronze in 2021. Thirty-one women also would be playing in a second straight Olympics.

The last player into the men’s field at the moment would be Colombia’s Nico Echavarria, who ranks 330th in the World Ranking. The odd person who would be out is Austria’s Bernd Wiesberger, who is ranked 344th.

The last player in the women’s field would be Italy’s Alessandra Fanali, ranked 359th. The first alternate among the women would be Bianca Pagdanganan of the Philippines (373rd).

Mind you, there are still 12 months to go with plenty of time for player movement.

MEN OLYMPIC QUALIFIERS

Alternates are the next highest ranked golfers from their respective countries who would be ranked high enough overall to qualify.
*—competed in the 2021 Olympics in Tokyo
Argentina
Emiliano Grillo
Alejandro Tosti
Australia
Cameron Smith*
Jason Day
Alternate: Adam Scott, Min Woo Lee, Cam Davis, Lucas Herbert
Austria
Sepp Straka*
Belgium
Thomas Pieters*
Thomas Detry*
Canada
Corey Conners*
Nick Taylor
Alternates: Adam Hadwin, Adam Svensson, Mackenzie Hughes
Chile
Joaquin Niemann*
Mito Pereira*
China
Carl Yuan*
Zecheng Dou
Chinese Taipei
CT Pan*
Kevin Yu
Colombia
Sebastian Munoz*
Nico Echavarria
Denmark
Rasmus Hojgaard*
Thorbjorn Olesen
Alternate: Nicolai Hojgaard
Finland
Sami Valimaki*
Kalle Samooja*
France
Victor Perez
Romain Langasque*
Alternate: Antoine Rozner, Julien Guerrier
Germany
Yannik Paul
Stephan Jaeger
Alternate: Maximillian Kieffer
Great Britain
Matt Fitzpatrick
Tyrrell Hatton
Alternates: Tommy Fleetwood, Justin Rose, Robert MacIntyre
India
Anirban Lahiri*
Shubhankar Sharma
Ireland
Rory McIlroy*
Shane Lowry*
Alternate: Seamus Power
Italy
Francesco Molinari
Guido Migliozzi*
Japan
Hideki Matsuyama*
Takumi Kanaya
Alternates: Kazuki Higa, Rikuya Hoshino
Malaysia
Gavin Green*
Mexico
Abraham Ancer*
Netherlands
Joost Luiten
New Zealand
Ryan Fox*
Daniel Hiller
Norway
Viktor Hovland*
Kristian Johannessen*
Paraguay
Fabrizio Zanotti*
Poland
Adrian Meronk*
South Africa
Thriston Lawrence
Christiaan Bezuidenhout*
Alternate: Dean Burmester
South Korea
Tom Kim
Sungjae Im*
Alternates: Si Woo Kim, K.H. Lee, Byeong Hun An
Spain
Jon Rahm
Pablo Larrazabal
Alternate: Adrian Otaegui
Sweden
Alex Noren*
Alexander Bjork
Alternate: David Lingmerth
Thailand
Sadom Kawekanjana
Phachara Khongwatmai
Alternate: Jazz Janewattananond
US
Scottie Scheffler
Patrick Cantlay
Xander Schauffele*
Max Homa
Alternates: Brian Harman, Wyndham Clark, Jordan Spieth, Brooks Koepka
Venezuela
Jhonattan Vegas*
Zimbabwe
Scott Vincent*

WOMEN OLYMPIC QUALIFIERS

Alternates are the next highest ranked golfers from their respective countries who would be ranked high enough overall to qualify.
*—competed in the 2021 Olympics in Tokyo
Argentina
Magdalena Simmermacher*
Australia
Minjee Lee*
Hannah Green*
Alternate: Grace Kim
Austria
Christine Wolf*
Sarah Schober
Alternate: Emma Spitz
Belgium
Manon De Roey*
Canada
Brooke Henderson*
Maude-Aimee Leblanc
Alternate: Maddie Szeryk
China
Ruoning Yin
Xiyu Lin*
Chinese Taipei
Wei-Ling Hsu
Chia Yen Wu
Alternate: Peiyun Chien
Czech Republic
Klara Davidson Spilkova*
Kristyna Napoleaova
Alternate: Sara Kouskova
Denmark
Nanna Koerstz Madsen*
Emily Kristine Pedersen*
Ecuador
Daniela Darquea*
Finland
Matilda Castren*
Ursula Wikstrom
Alternate: Noora Komulainen
France
Celine Boutier*
Perrine Delacour*
Alternate: Pauline Roussin
Germany
Chiara Noja
Caroline Masson*
Alternate: Esther Henseleit
Great Britain
Georgia Hall
Charley Hull
Alternates: Jodi Ewart Shadoff, Gemma Dryburgh
India
Aditi Ashok*
Diksha Dagar*
Ireland
Leona Maguire*
Stephanie Meadow
Italy
Virginia Elena Carta
Alessandra Fanali
Japan
Ayaka Furue
Nasa Hataoka*
Alternates: Miyu Yamashita, Yuka Saso, Chisato Iwai, Akie Iwai
Malaysia
Natasha Oon
Kelly Tan*
Mexico
Gaby Lopez*
Maria Fassi*
Morocco
Ines Laklalech
The Netherlands
Anne van Dam*
Dewi Weber
New Zealand
Lydia Ko*
Momoka Kobori
Norway
Celine Borge
The Philippines
Dottie Ardina
Slovenia
Pia Babnik*
South Africa
Ashleigh Buhai
Paula Reto
South Korea
Jin Young Ko*
Hyo-Hoo Kim*
Alternates: In Gee Chun, Ji Yai Shin, Min Ji Park, Hye Jin Choi
Spain
Carlota Ciganda*
Ana Pelaez
Sweden
Linn Grant
Anna Nordqvist
Alternates: Madelene Sagstrom, Maja Stark
Switzerland
Albane Valenzuela*
Morgane Metraux
Thailand
Atthaya Thitkil
Ariya Jutanugarn*
Alternates: Pajaree Anannarukarn, Patty Tavatanakit, Vongtaveelap Natthakritta, Moriya Jutanugarn
United States
Nelly Korda*
Lilia Vu
Allisen Corpuz
Alternates: Lexi Thompson, Danielle Kang, Jennifer Kupcho, Megan Khang

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