If Olympic golf is covered like Vancouver, there'll be trouble

Hey, remember those Winter Olympics from Vancouver? Yeah, those were the days -- Lindsey Vonn, U.S. hockey, Apolo Ohno, late February 2010. Good times. With those Olympics in the rear-view mirror, some are casting their eyes forward and wondering what the future holds for golf's reappearance in the Games come 2016.

Count Geoff Shackelford among the skeptical. Like the rest of us, Shackelford saw the scattershot, hunt-and-peck coverage of the Olympics and wondered how golf would fare in such an environment. The answer: "barring a complete re-imagining of its format, golf in the 2016 Olympic games will be a complete and utter failure."

The problems, as Shackelford outlines them:

• The 72-hole stroke play format is exactly like every other week during the regular golf season, so who really cares to see that?

• There's no team competition; it's every golfer for himself.

• There won't be any "compelling-story" triple-digit golfers from heaven knows where, because the field will be filled out with the Official World Golf rankings.

Now, that's a pretty harsh assessment, but it could well be a fair one. Given what you just saw from the Olympics, what's your take on how golf will fare?

Olympic Golf After The Winter Olympics [Geoff Shackelford]