Golf won't be a sport at 2012 Olympic Games in London

Perhaps golf is clean of performance-enhancing drugs after all.

How else could you explain its failure to be made an official sport at the 2012 Olympic Games in London, it was recently voted down. Phil Mickelson is supporting Olympic golf as he tees it up in Singapore.

It seems the committee doesn’t have much of a desire for a legitimate, honorable sport these days. The Games’ credibility is getting worse and worse. Just look at this Wikipedia entry detailing every scandal in 2004. There are plenty of instances of performance-enhancing drugs. The Olympics are becoming a joke - full of silly sports no one is really passionate about except the many athletes who will risk being internationally disgraced to win.

I’ve been calling for Olympic golf for some time now. It would be great to see a country try and upset the South Koreans in women’s golf, and the men’s event would be up for grabs between the USA, South Africa, Australia and England - or dark horses like Argentina or Spain. Tell me that wouldn’t be fun to watch.

Tim Finchem and the PGA Tour boys probably wouldn’t like it because that would likely mean two weeks out of the summer where their events aren’t as big, and it would be another excuse for Tiger Woods to skip the Barclays and some other second-tier tourneys. But the event would do wonders for the Olympics and global recognition of golf, which is already growing tremendously in markets like Asia and South America.

And London has scores of worthy venues close by like Royal Lytham & Royal St. George’s that are worthy of hosting such a high-profile international event.

I guess we’re stuck with ping-pong and ballroom dancing instead in 2012. Can we at least make fooseball an Olympic sport? We could have match play, one man, two man and freestyle tricks competitions.