According to the Netherlands Golf Federation, on Tuesday, it provided the Dutch Olympic committee with ‘extensive arguments and evidence’ during their meeting on June 14 in an attempt to highlight the distinctive ways that golf differs from other sports. The NGF stated in a statement that “it has not been demonstrated that there is a reasonable chance of a top-eight ranking during the Olympic Games.”
Golfers from the Netherlands won’t be competing in the Olympics. Stars are informed they have little chance of medaling, yet Slovakia’s rank outsider Rory Sabbatini won silver in Tokyo. Dutch Olympic officials feel their world ranking is too low to have a realistic chance against 60-player fields, thus they are keeping two male and one female golfer home from the Paris tournament.
Joost Luiten and Darius Van Driel will not be traveling to Paris as a result of the decision. Dutch officials have sent golfers home from the Olympics for the second time in a row because they are not in the top 100 in the world rankings. The events at the Tokyo Olympics are the most striking about the Dutch decision. On a momentous day for Slovakian golf, Rory Sabbatini, who started the competition ranked 161 in the world, shot 61 in the last round to take home the silver medal. To earn the bronze, C.T. Pan of Taiwan defeated a seven-man playoff that featured Collin Morikawa and Rory McIlroy. Pan qualified with a global ranking of No. 181.
The Official World Golf Ranking is used to determine Olympic qualifying. Until the sixty participants are filled, each country may send two players—four if all are in the top fifteen—to compete. The Netherlands had established a requirement that athletes must rank in the top 36 Olympic rankings or among the top 100 in the globe in order to compete at the Tokyo Games. When qualifying concluded, Luiten was ranked 177th while Wil Besseling was ranked 221.
Luiten’s world ranking was No. 147 and his Olympic ranking was No. 40 this year. The lone Dutch golfer competing will be Anne Van Dam, who is ranked No. 34 in the Olympic rankings and No. 108 in the world rankings for women. Dewi Weber, ranked 302nd in the world, will not be competing for the Netherlands Olympic Committee. The 38-year-old Luiten is a six-time European Tour winner who has qualified for 21 majors, including two Masters events. In the previous British Open, he tied for 71st place.
- Due to the lack of Dutch golfer
s, Joel Girrbach of Switzerland (ranked 366 in the world) and Tapio Pulkkanen of Finland (ranked 378), who are on the reallocation reserve list, will take the place of the male participants. In an interview conducted during the U.S. Open two summers ago at The Country Club, where he tied for 56th place, Besseling expressed his hope that Dutch officials would modify the requirements. It was a “stupid rule to make,” he declared.
The International Golf Federation attempted to demonstrate that golf margins are so tight that players way outside the top 100 can win on any given week in a lengthy letter supporting the Dutch players for the June 14 meeting.
According to the IGF letter, “it is typical for lower-ranked players to make a significant impact in major tournaments, defying their current standings.” “There are many instances of players with lower OWGR rankings doing well in major events.” This year, seven players who are not in the world’s top 100 have emerged victorious from PGA Tour events that awarded complete FedEx Cup points. Nick Dunlap, who won The American Express against a field that included Scottie Scheffler while still a college amateur, is on that list.
The Netherlands Olympic Committee/Netherlands Sports Federation, the official name of the Dutch committee, modified their selection standards to send golfers to the 2024 Summer Olympics. Men who placed outside the top 27 in the Olympic rankings would need to place in the top eight of a competition, providing the competition featured five players from the top 50 or ten from the top 100. A top-four finish would be necessary for anything less. In a world ranking that has shifted more in favor of the PGA Tour in the past year, the European tour, where Luiten and Van Driel play, rarely receives that many players among the top 100.
Tommy Fleetwood defeated Rory McIlroy by one stroke in the Dubai Invitational, where Luiten tied for 14th place. This year, he has five top-20 finishes.
Van Driel’s first victory on the European circuit came in February when he won the Magical Kenya Open. There were only two players from the top 100 in that competition.