By Shane Ryan
JOHNS CREEK, Ga. — In May 2020, when Danielle Kang learned that qualifying for the Olympic golf tournament had been extended 15 months due to COVID-19, she panicked. And then she cried. At that point, she had mathematically secured her spot to play in Tokyo, and the extension in essence had snatched her dream away from her. It meant so much to her that the idea that she could achieve what she called her “life goal,” have it taken from her and then fail to achieve it again was devastating … even though it was only hypothetical.

Kang’s story has a happy ending. She played on when the LPGA resumed its season last summer and has secured her spot in Tokyo yet again. And it’s her passion for the event, and the passion of her fellow pros, that seems so out of place if your only experience with the confluence of golf and the Olympics has come from the men’s side.

One of the biggest post-U.S. Open stories is the ongoing trickle of men who are choosing not to compete in the Olympics after men’s qualifying closed on Sunday. Dustin Johnson and Adam Scott took their names out of the running early in 2021, but recently Tokyo has lost Louis Oosthuizen, Tyrrell Hatton, Sergio Garcia and Martin Kaymer. As John Feinstein wrote in March, even those who end up making the trip might not necessarily be over the moon about it, and the Olympics don’t register on the same level as a major in golf. With a month and a day left before the start of the Games, we probably haven’t seen the end of the exodus.

Which makes it at least a little strange that at Atlanta Athletic Club, the site of this week’s KPMG Women’s PGA Championship, not only are the women in qualifying position excited to play in the Olympics, but the race for the final spots—women’s qualifying ends on Sunday—is one of the most compelling narratives of the week.

The main drama centers on the U.S. and South Korea contingents. Both countries are eligible for four spots in the Olympic field since they have at least that many players ranked inside the top 15 of the Rolex Rankings. In each case, the top three are secure: Jin Young Ko, Inbee Park and Sei Young Kim for Korea; and Nelly Korda, Danielle Kang and Lexi Thompson for the U.S. (Thompson loves the Olympics so much that after competing in Rio, she got a tattoo of the Olympic rings.) It’s the fourth spot where the intrigue is brewing—on the Korean side, Hyo-Joo Kim is attempting to hold off a number of her compatriots, while Jessica Korda has to defend her spot against American challengers like Ally Ewing, Jennifer Kupcho and Austin Ernst.

Stuart Franklin
After competing in the Rio Olympics in 2016, Lexi Thompson got a tattoo of the Olympic rings as a reminder of her play.

On Tuesday, when a number of the players in qualifying position spoke to the media, there was a marked contrast in how the Olympics were discussed. While the conversation on among the men has been laced with hesitancy, for the women, there is unabashed excitement.

“To be able to achieve what I wanted to achieve, being on the Olympic team for the second time of my career, it has been a very big goal of my career,” said Inbee Park, the 2016 gold medalist. “I know a lot of Korean girls, I think it’s one of their most wanted goals to be on the team. For me as well, I’ve achieved a lot in golf, won a lot of majors, won a lot of tournaments, but winning the gold medal was something really different.”

Ko, ranked No. 1 in the Rolex Rankings, brightened up instantly at the very end of her press conference when the topic of the Olympics came up.

“Yes!” she chirped, practically hopping with energy. “It’s really tough to get to the Tokyo Olympics, especially the Korean team, because everyone knows Korean players playing every week are really good. Everyone is like, perfect players. So it was hard to get in there, but I made it. I’m so happy.”

Kim, who has secured her spot as the third player from Korea, said that making the Olympics and representing her country was her “biggest wish.” Meanwhile, the Korda sisters stressed that they were focused on this week, but each lamented the fact that their parents couldn’t come along to enjoy the experience in Tokyo if they were to both make the U.S. team.

It was Kang, though, who was the most effusive about the reality of playing at the Olympics.

“I can’t speak for what the Olympics mean for a lot of people, but for me it’s everything,” she said. “Ever since I trained Tae Kwon Do to be an Olympian, the Olympics have been my dream … it’s something I’ve wanted to achieve all my life.”

Thananuwat Srirasant
Danielle Kang is grateful that the extended qualifying period didn’t prevent her from making the American Olympic team.

When asked how to explain the difference in perspective between the men and women, Kang declined to speculate. Park could only point to the scheduling issues inherent to the men’s game (the Open Championship is being played two weeks before and the FedEx Cup Playoffs begin three weeks after).

Perhaps it’s that, and perhaps the contrast in outlook goes deeper. In Atlanta, it was clear that the women appreciate and respect the history and stature of the Olympics, and are filled with excitement at the prospect of competing, for reasons that simply haven’t resonated with the men. For all the negative press surrounding golf in Tokyo, the Olympic spirit still exists if you know where to look.

The post On the Olympics, LPGA stars paint a major contrast with the men appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By Ryan Herrington
With the first year of the re-imagined men’s major-championship calendar completed, and players still assessing how to plan their schedules to be best prepared for the big four tournaments, not to mention the looming FedEx Cup playoffs on the PGA Tour, they will have additional consideration in 2020.

The Olympics.

A year from today, Tokyo will host the opening ceremonies for the 2020 Summer Games. Six days after that, the men’s Olympic golf tournament begins, the 72-hole stroke-play competition being played July 30-Aug. 2 at Kasumigaseki Country Club’s East Course in the Tokyo suburb of Saitama. The women’s tournament starts three days after the men’s event ends, Aug. 5-8 at Kasumigaseki, before the closing ceremonies Aug. 9.

The men’s Olympic competition will come just 11 days after the conclusion of the Open Championship at Royal St. George’s. The women’s tournament is likely to fall between the Evian Championship and the Women’s British Open (official dates for these tournaments have yet to be released).

At last week’s Open Championship at Portrush, a handful of players were asked about their interest in competing in the Olympics. Many said they hadn’t yet begun to think about it, given they are still more than a year away.

“I haven’t given it much thought,” said Brooks Koepka. “When the time comes, I’ll get there.”

However, after golf’s successful return to the Olympics three years ago in Rio, and without the health concerns of the Zika virus that caused some players (Rory McIlroy, Jordan Spieth, Adam Scott, among others) to skip the 2016 competition, player interest in Tokyo appears far greater, particularly among top-ranked men.

Qualifying for 2020 Olympics began in July 2018, with golfers accumulating points in an official Olympics Ranking that essentially mirrors the men’s and women’s World Rankings. The qualifying period runs through June 23, 2020 for the men and June 30, 2020 for the women.

So who will be competing in Tokyo? To get a glimpse at the possible teams for 2020, 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 (Japan) 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 golfers in the top 15). So the first four—Brooks Koepka, Dustin Johnson, Tiger Woods and Bryson DeChambeau—would make the team, with the remaining five (Justin Thomas, Patrick Cantlay, Xander Schauffele, Tony Finau and Rickie Fowler) needing to improve their status if they want to be playing in Tokyo.

Getty Images

On the women’s side, South Korea is in a similar spot with six players among the top 15 of the women’s rankings. The U.S. has exactly four players currently in the top 15 (Jessica Korda is barely in as she is ranked No. 15).

As for the American teams, all four men’s qualifiers would be first-time players, with the entire 2016 U.S. team of Bubba Watson, Rickie Fowler, Patrick Reed and Matt Kuchar (who won the bronze medal in 2016) outside of the qualification standard. The 2020 U.S. women’s team would have one carryover from 2016—Lexi Thompson—with Nelly Korda, Danielle Kang and Jessica Korda joining her.

Getty Images

In the men’s tournament, 18 golfers who competed in Rio also would be eligible for Tokyo, including gold-medal winner Justin Rose and silver medallist Henrik Stenson. For the women, gold, silver and bronze medalists Inbee Park, Lydia Ko and Shanshan Feng would be among 31 golfers playing a second time.

The last player into the men’s field at the moment would be Germany’s Maxmillian Kieffer, who ranks 271st in the World Ranking. The odd person who would be out is Finland’s Kalle Samooja, who is ranked 285th.

The last player in the women’s field would be New Zealand’s Munchin Keh, ranked 422nd. The first alternate among the women would be Finland’s Noora Komulainen (448th).

Mind you, there are still 11 months to go with plenty of time for player movement.

[divider] [/divider]

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 2016 Olympics in Rio

Argentina (2)
Emiliano Grillo*
Nelson Ledesma

Australia (2)
Adam Scott
Jason Day
Replacements: Marc Leishman, Cameron Smith, Brendan Jones, Lucas Herbert, Matt Jones

Austria (2)
Bernd Wiesberger*
Sepp Straka
Alternate: Matthias Schwab

Belgium (2)
Thomas Pieters*
Thomas Detry
Alternate: Nicolas Colsaerts*

Canada (2)
Adam Hadwin
Corey Conners
Alternates: Mackenzie Hughes, Roger Sloan, Nick Taylor

Chile (1)
Joaquin Niemann

China (2)
Haotong Li*
Xinjun Zhang
Alternate: Ashun Wu*

Chinese Taipei (1)
C.T. Pan*

Colombia (1)
Sebastián Muñoz

Denmark (2)
Lucas Bjerregaard
Thorbjørn Olesen*
Alternate: Joachim B Hansen

Finland (1)
Mikko Korhonen
Replacement: Kalle Samooja

France (2)
Michael Lorenzo-Vera
Benjamin Hebert
Alternates: Romain Langasque, Victor Perez, Alexander Levy, Antoine Rozner, Robin Roussel

Germany (2)
Martin Kaymer*
Maxmillian Kieffer

Great Britain (2)
Justin Rose*
Tommy Fleetwood
Alternates: Paul Casey, Matt Wallace, Matthew Fitzpatrick, Eddie Pepperell, Tyrrell Hatton

India (2)
Shubhankar Sharma
Gaganjeet Bhullar

Ireland (2)
Rory McIlroy
Shane Lowry
Replacements: Graeme McDowell, Paul Dunne

Italy (2)
Francesco Molinari
Andrea Pavan
Alternates: Guido Migliozzi

Japan (2)*
Hideki Matsuyama
Shugo Imahira
Alternates: Satoshi Kodaira, Yuta Ikeda*, Masahiro Kawamura, Ryuko Tokimatsu, Yuki Inamori

Malaysia (1)
Gavin Kyle Green*

Mexico (2)
Abraham Ancer
Carlos Ortiz

The Netherlands (2)
Joost Luiten*
Darius Van Driel

New Zealand (2)
Ryan Fox*
Danny Lee*

Norway (2)
Kristoffer Ventura
Viktor Hovland

Paraguay (1)
Fabrizio Zanotti*

Portugal (1)
Ricardo Santos

Slovakia (1)
Rory Sabbatini

South Africa (2)
Louis Oosthuizen
Justin Harding
Alternates: Branden Grace, Erik van Rooyen, JC Ritchie, Shaun Norris, Dylan Frittelli

South Korea (2)
Byeong Hun An*
Sungjae Im
Alternates: Sung Kang, Si Woo Kim, Sanghyun Park, Jung-gon Hwang, Hyungjoon Lee

Spain (2)
Jon Rahm
Rafa Cabrera Bello*
Alternates: Sergio Garcia*, Jorge Campillo, Adrian Otaegui, Adri Arnaus, Ignacio Elvira Mijares

Sweden (2)
Henrik Stenson*
Alex Noren
Alternates: Alexander Bjork, Marcus Kinhult , Jonas Blixt, Henrik Norlander

Thailand (2)
Jazz Janewattananond
Kiradech Aphibarnrat*
Alternates: Poom Saksansin, Prom Meesawat

United States (4)
Brooks Koepka
Dustin Johnson
Tiger Woods
Bryson DeChambeau
Alternates: Justin Thomas, Patrick Cantlay, Xander Schauffele, Tony Finau, Rickie Fowler*

Venezuela (1)
Jhonattan Vegas*

Zimbabwe (1)
Scott Vincent

[divider] [/divider]

Scott Halleran
Silver medallist Lydia Ko of New Zealand, gold medallist Inbee Park of Korea and bronze medallist Shanshan Feng of China pose by the Olympic rings after Women’s golf competition at the 2016 Rio games.

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 2016 Olympics in Rio

Australia (2)
Minjee Lee*
Hannah Green
Su-Hyun Oh, Katherine Kirk, Karis Davidson, Sarah Smith, Sarah Kemp

Austria (2)
Christine Wolf*
Sarah Schober

Belgium (1)
Manon De Roey

Canada (2)
Brooke Henderson*
Alena Sharp*
Alternates: Brittany Marchand, Anne-Catherine Tanguay, Maude-Aimee Leblanc, Maddie Szeryk

China (2)
Shanshan Feng*
Yu Liu
Alternates: Jing Yan, Haruka Morita-WanyaoLu, Xiyu Lin, Weiwei Zhang, Wenbo Liu

Chinese Taipai (2)
Wei-Ling Hsu
Teresa Lu*
Alternates: Hsuan-Yu Yao, Yu-Ju Chen, Peiyun Chien, Pei-Ying Tsai, Min Lee

Colombia (1)
Mariajo Uribe*

Czech Republic (1)
Klara Spilkova*

Denmark (2)
Nanna Koerstz Madsen*
Nicole Broch Larsen*

Ecuador (1)
Daniela Darquea

Finland (1)
Ursula Wikstrom*
Alternates: Noora Komulainen*, Sanna Nuutinen

France (2)
Celine Boutier
Perrine Delacour
Alternates: Celine Herbin, Karine Icher*, Camille Chevalier, Astrid Pradenne

Germany (2)
Caroline Masson*
Sandra Gal*
Alternates: Esther Henseleit, Olivia Cowen, Karolin Lampert, Sophia Popov, Laura Fuenfstueck

Great Britain (2)
Bronte Law
Charley Hull*
Alternates: Georgia Hall, Jodi Shadoff, Melissa Reid, Charlotte Thomas, Meghan Maclaren

Hong Kong (1)
Tiffany Chan*

India (2)
Aditi Ashok*
Diksha Dagar

Ireland (2)
Leona Maguire*
Stephanie Meadow*

Israel (1)
Laetitia Beck*

Italy (1)
Giulia Molinaro*

Japan (2)*
Nasa Hataoka
Ai Suzuki
Alternates: Mamiko Higa, Hinako Shibuno, Yui Kawamoto, Momoko Ueda, Minami Katsu

Mexico (2)
Gaby Lopez*
Maria Fassi

The Netherlands (1)
Anne van Dam

New Zealand (2)
Lydia Ko*
Munchin Keh

Norway (2)
Marianne Skarpnord*
Tonje Daffinrud

Paraguay (1)
Julieta Granada*

The Philippines (2)
Dottie Ardina
Yuka Saso
Alternates: Princess Superal, Clariss Guce

Puerto Rico (1)
Maria Torres

Slovenia (1)
Katja Pogacar

South Africa (2)
Ashleigh Buhai
Lee-Anne Pace
Alternate: Stacy Bregman

South Korea (4)
Sung Hyun Park
Jin-Young Ko
Jeonguen Lee6
Inbee Park*
Alternates: Sei Young Kim, So Yeon Ryu, Amy Yang, Eun-Hee Ji, Hyo-Joo Kim

Spain (2)
Carlota Ciganda*
Azahara Munoz*
Alternates: Nuria Iturrioz, Beatriz Recari, Luna Gaimes, Noemi Jimenez, Marta Barrio

Sweden (2)
Anna Nordqvist*
Pernilla Lindberg*
Alternates: Madelene Sagstrom, Caroline Hedwell, Linnea Strom, Daniela Holmqvist, Jenny Haglund

Thailand (2)
Ariya Jutanugarn*
Moriya Jutanugarn
Alternates: Pornanong Phatlum*, Jasmine Suwannapura, Saranporn Langkulgasettrin, Patty Tavatanakit, Pajaree Anannarukarn

United States (4)
Lexi Thompson*
Nelly Korda
Danielle Kang
Jessica Korda
Alternates: Lizette Salas, Angel Yin, Marina Alex, Annie Park, Austin Ernst

The post The 2020 Olympics are a year away. Here are the golfers who would be competing in Tokyo if the Games were played today appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.