Manitoba-raised Dan Halldorson knows what it is like to play golf for Canada.
At least four more Canadians will gain that experience in 2016 when golf returns to the Olympic Games after an absence of 112 years.
Halldorson, currently deputy director of the Canadian professional golf tour and earlier a PGA tour winner, is enthused about golf’s re-acceptance by the Olympics, but says Canada’s golfers will face pressure to perform at the Rio de Janeiro Summer Games in six years.
He represented Canada seven times in the 48-country World Cup of Golf, winning two global championships with partner Jim Nelford in 1980 and with Dave Barr in 1985.
“There is pressure because you want to play well when you are carrying your country’s flag,” says Halldorson who excelled as a professional after developing his game in Sandy Hook and Brandon. “It’s not business as usual where there is another tournament and another possible payday next week.”
Ironically, Canada is defending champion from the only time golf was played in the Olympics.
That was in 1904 when George Seymour Lyon of Richmond Hill, Ont., defeated American Chandler Egan in the final in St. Louis.
Lyon celebrated his victory by walking the entire length of the clubhouse on his hands.
More than a century later, both men and women golfers will have a chance to celebrate in their own fashion if they win Olympic Gold.
The tentative format for the 2016 tournament calls for four rounds of stroke play in individual rather than team competitions. There will be 60 players in each of the two divisions, including the top 15 male and female golfers in the world. Filling out the fields will be two players each from countries not in the top 15.
Jeff Thompson, golf development director for the Royal Canadian Golf Association (RCGA), says the exact format will be worked out in the next two years through consultations between Olympic officials and representatives of international and national golf federations such as the RCGA.
The International Olympic Committee has approved golf for both the 2016 and 2020 Games, with a review scheduled after that.
“The discussions leading up to 2016 will focus on such things as who can participate and how they qualify,” the Toronto-based Thompson says, adding that more than 30 countries will have input in the debate.
While the format still has to be tied down, everybody in the golf world is ecstatic about the sport’s return to the Olympics. “It will open the doors for golf throughout the world,” Thompson says.
Halldorson says that based on his experience, international golf tournaments spread the popularity of the sport to non-traditional countries.
“I think the Olympics will create more awareness of golf and be good for the game’s development in countries just getting started,” he says.
“When I played in World Cups, we competed against neophyte nations like Egypt and Greece. It took a while but they eventually developed some pretty good players.”
Halldorson also likes the “goodwill” aspect of events such as the Olympics and the World Cup. “One of the benefits is that you get to know many players from other countries,” he says.
Just two men and two women golfers will represent Canada at the Rio de Janeiro Games. If picked today, the obvious selections on the men’s side would be veteran stars Mike Weir and Stephen Ames, both of whom may be heading into the golf sunset by 2016.
They could be eclipsed in the next few seasons by Graham DeLaet of Weyburn, Sask., and Chris Baryla of Vernon, B.C., two promising young players just starting to shine on the PGA Tour, the world’s leading golf circuit.
Change is also in the wind in the women’s ranks. Lorie Kane, long Canada’s best player, is showing signs of surrendering her laurels to relative LPGA Tour newcomers Alena Sharp of Hamilton and Lisa Meldrum of Montreal.
Manitoba lacks any immediate prospects for Olympic golf stardom, but provincial officials are nevertheless elated about their sport’s entry into the Games.
“It will do wonders world-wide for our game,” says Dave Comaskey, executive director of Golf Manitoba, the provincial association for the sport.
“Golf’s profile and prestige will increase and more resources will be allocated to it. In Manitoba and other places, it will be an added incentive for young people to play the game.”
Both Comaskey and Garth Goodbrandson, Golf Manitoba’s director of player development, say there is now a path for teenaged Manitoba golfers to become accustomed to Olympic style competitions.
The younger set can start in the 16-and-under Manitoba Games, progress to the 17-and-under Western Canada Games and then further their development in the 18-and-under Canada Games.
One young player taking that route is Myles Sullivan, 17, of Portage La Prairie, a top junior golfer who represented Manitoba last August at the Canada Games in Prince Edward Island.
Sullivan, motivated partly by the excitement of the recent Vancouver Olympics, plans to complete his junior career, play golf in university and ultimately make it his career.
“Playing in the Olympics would be a dream come true,” Sullivan says. “It would be a great honour to represent my country. Golf is my passion and my goal and drive is always to be better.”
Rana MacLeod, head professional at Gimli’s Links at the Lake course, says the Olympics will provide a major opportunity for players, increase golf’s exposure, and spark new enthusiasm for the sport.
“Hopefully, the Games will create a buzz and do the same for golf that they did for curling,” says MacLeod, a five-time Manitoba women’s LPGA champion. “The end result could be more funding and sponsorships for golf.”
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