By mustang6560 on 7/14/11

The R&A announced yesterday the location of the golf course that will be built for the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro.

“Within the last three weeks or so the Rio organising committee and the city of Rio confirmed that Riserva Uno … will be the site,” R&A chief executive Peter Dawson told reporters on the eve of the 140th British Open at Sandwich.

“It is a site close to the Olympic village and quite close to the sea in the Barra area of Rio. A course will be designed by an architect yet to be determined.

The architects in the running to design the course include Jack Nicklaus, Annika Sorenstam, Greg Norman and Lorena Ochoa. Dawson said the course designer will need to be selected quickly so they can stay on schedule to have a test run on the course by 2015.

Golf has been left out of the Summer Olympics since the 1904 Games in St. Louis, Missouri but will return in 2016. If golf is going to make it as a sport in the Summer Olympics, they are going to have to change the format to include team competitions. The current proposed format is a 72-hole stroke play with fields of 60 men and 60 women.

I think they should adopt a format similar to the Ryder Cup to add some excitement to engage sports fans who don't normally watch golf. It would get a little tricky because there would be more than two teams, but the last thing golf needs is to appear to be "boring". But, Dawson said they won't consider any changes until after the 2012 Summer Olympics in London.



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