Ty Votaw
CHASKA, Minn. – An hour before the International Olympic Committee's Executive Board was scheduled to announce the fate of golf for the 2016 games, Ty Votaw was on the phone with Peter Dawson.
Votaw, the PGA Tour executive who has been “on loan” to the International Golf Federation for 14 months to spearhead its Olympic bid, was here at the U.S. PGA Championship. Dawson, head of the R&A and Votaw’s partner in the Olympic effort, was in Berlin, where the IOC’s announcement was being made.
Both men were on tender hooks.
Supporters of Olympic golf had grown increasingly optimistic in recent weeks, but this was no done deal. Seven sports had lobbied intensely, and the IOC is a notoriously political animal. As their phone conversation was ending, Dawson said to Votaw: “Let’s just hope no one pulls a rabbit out of their hat.”
No one did. Golf and rugby sevens made the cut, and final approval now depends on gaining a simple majority vote from the 107-member IOC on Oct. 9.
Relief was evident as Votaw and Joe Steranka, CEO of the PGA of America and fellow International Golf Federation board member, hovered over a laptop in the PGA media center, watching the IOC press conference on Olympic.org. Immediately afterward, Votaw was glued to his Blackberry, fielding a flurry of congratulatory emails, before formally announcing golf’s success to reporters.
“We are obviously thrilled with this announcement,” Votaw said. “It takes an important step closer for golf to return as an Olympic sport. The IOC membership has the final say in this determination of what gets added to the Olympic program. It does not have to follow the board’s recommendations, but clearly if we did not receive the recommendation, the great likelihood would be that our campaign for inclusion in the Olympic Games would be over, and so this is a very important next step in the process.”
Votaw said it was unclear whether golf and rugby would be considered individually or as a block.
“If it’s individually, it would be two (sports), one or none that could get in with a majority vote of the membership,” Votaw said. “If it’s a block, then both with get in or both will be excluded if we don’t receive the majority vote.”
Votaw said the next step for the IGF Olympics committee is to determine the most effective way to communicate with IOC members “so we can continue to tell the story we have told over the past 14 months and impress upon them why we think it’s compelling for golf to be added to the Olympics.”
Votaw stressed the importance of continued support over the coming weeks not only from Tiger Woods, who affirmed on Tuesday that he expects to compete in the 1016 Games, but also from other marquee players worldwide.
“Lorena Ochoa carries an enormous amount of weight in her own country (Mexico),” Votaw said“ Annika Sorenstam in Sweden. Ernie Els in South Africa. Vijay Singh – there’s a vote from Fiji on the IOC board. So all of those interests and expressions of support from those various players to their IOC members back home is critical.”
The IOC executive board recommended golf after considering presentations made by Votaw and Dawson, as well as answers submitted by the IGF to an 80-page questionnaire. The IGF proposed a 72-hold stroke play format and eligibility based on the men’s and women’s respective world golf rankings.
“It’s not been an extensive dialogue (between the IOC and IGF), but it’s been one where there’s been a little bit of give and take with them,” Votaw said. “But they have not commented on the format or the eligibility requirements that we have set forth.”
The IGF has long pushed for golf in the Olympics, arguing that its inclusion would be the impetus for national governments to fund golf development programs in countries where the game is embryonic. In China, for instance, golf has been underfunded because its national governing body, the China Golf Association, operates within the confines of an entity known as the Multi-Ball Games Administrative Center of State Sports, which oversees golf and seven other sports.
Steranka, who only the day before had announced the formation of the World PGA Alliance to facilitate the training of golf instructors and administrators in developing golf nations, said the time is right to truly globalize the game.
“What an Olympic bid for golf would mean is that every developing golf territory would have state support from both the government side and the sporting infrastructure in those countries to promote our game of golf,” Steranka said. “So in the mature markets such as the Americas and the U.K., and some countries in Asia, although not all, this won’t have the great impact that it will have to jumpstart things in other developing golf communities around the globe.
“The vision is that if we have some 90 million people playing the game worldwide right now, that’s going to grow exponentially in the year’s to come.”
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