When golf fans tune in to the 2024 Olympics golf competition this summer, the men’s and women’s events will look familiar to the last two iterations in 2016 and 2021. But by 2028, a major change could transform the experience for golf Olympians.
According to a report from the Associated Press, Olympics organizers are close to agreeing on a new mixed team golf event for the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, Calif., involving teams of men and women golfers.
The Olympics golf format is all wrong, but there’s an easy solution
While the AP’s anonymous sources have provided few details, the mixed team event is expected to exist in addition to the current individual competitions. A big question remaining is what the format of the team event will be, how many teams will be included and how those teams will be determined.
The inspiration, at least in part, comes from the new Grant Thornton Invitational event that features 16 mixed teams of PGA Tour and LPGA Tour golfers. In the inaugural event last December, Lydia Ko and Jason day teamed up to take home the title at Tiburon Golf Club in Florida.
The format for the 2023 Grant Thornton involved three total rounds: one scramble round, one foursomes round and one round of modified fourball.
The 2024 Olympic golf competition will take place at Le Golf National outside of Paris. As in the 2016 Olympics in Rio and the 2021 Olympics in Tokyo, the Paris games will feature separate 72-hole stroke-play competitions for the men and women, with the top-three finishers in each tournament earning medals.
Golf returned to the Olympics in 2016 after a lengthy period of time when the sport was missing from the games. Golf made its first Olympics appearance at the 1900 Paris games and was featured again in the 1904 St. Louis Olympics. It then began a 112-year absence.
