- Holland will not send golfers to the Olympic Games
- Stars were told they have no chance of winning a medal
- But outsider Rory Sabbatini won silver in Tokyo for Slovakia
Dutch Olympic officials will keep two players and one woman home from the golf competition in Paris because they believe their world ranking is too low to have a realistic chance against 60-player fields.
The Dutch Golf Federation said Tuesday it presented “extensive arguments and data” at a June 14 meeting with the Dutch committee overseeing the Olympic Games, hoping to show unique differences in golf compared to other sports.
“According to them, it has not been proven that there is a reasonable chance of being among the top eight during the Olympic Games,” the NGF said in a statement.
The decision means that Joost Luiten and Darius Van Driel will not travel to Paris. It is the second consecutive Olympics in which Dutch officials have kept golfers home for not being ranked among the top 100 in the world.
What is most telling about the Dutch decision is what happened at the Tokyo Olympics. Rory Sabbatini was ranked 161st in the world and shot 61 in the final round to win the silver medal on a historic day for Slovakian golf.
Taiwan’s CT Pan won a seven-man playoff, which included Rory McIlroy and Collin Morikawa, to win bronze. Pan was ranked 181st in the world.
Olympic qualification is based on the Official World Golf Ranking. Countries are allowed two players (four if all are in the top 15) until the field of 60 players is filled.
For the Tokyo Games, the Netherlands had set a standard for players to be among the top 100 in the world or the top 36 in the Olympic rankings in order for them to compete. Luiten was in 177th place and Wil Besseling was in 221st place when he finished the ranking.
Dutch golfers denied chance to compete in Olympics
Darius Van Driel is among the men’s golfers who will not make his Olympic dream come true
This year, Luiten was ranked 40th in the Olympic rankings, with a world ranking of 147th.
Anne Van Dam, number 108 in the women’s world ranking and number 34 in the Olympic ranking, will be the only Dutch golfer. The Dutch Olympic Committee will not send Dewi Weber, who is ranked 302 in the world.
Luiten, 38, has won six times on the European circuit and has qualified for 21 majors, including the Masters twice, and last year tied for 71st at the British Open.
The absence of Dutch golfers means the men’s players will be replaced by Joel Girrbach of Switzerland (No. 366 in the world) and Tapio Pulkkanen of Finland (No. 378) from the reallocation reserve list.
Besseling, in an interview two summers ago at the US Open, where he tied for 56th at The Country Club, hoped Dutch officials would change the criteria. He said it was a “stupid rule.”
The International Golf Federation sent a detailed letter in support of Dutch golfers for the June 14 meeting, trying to explain that the margins are so tight in golf that players outside the top 100 can win any week.
Dutch Olympic officials believe golfers like Joost Luiten have no chance of winning medals
This despite outsider Rory Sabbatini (right) winning silver in Tokyo.
“It is common for lower-ranked players to have a significant impact in major tournaments, challenging their current ranking,” the IGF letter said. “There are numerous examples of players with lower OWGR rankings performing well in big events.”
Seven players ranked outside the world’s top 100 won PGA Tour events that offered full FedEx Cup points this year. That list includes Nick Dunlap, who was an amateur still in college when he won The American Express against a field that included Scottie Scheffler.
The Dutch committee (formally the Netherlands Olympic Committee/Netherlands Sports Federation) changed its criteria for sending golfers to the 2024 Olympic Games.
For men, anyone who finishes outside the top 27 of the Olympic rankings would have to finish in the top eight in a tournament, as long as that tournament has five players from the world’s top 50 or 10 from the top 100. a top four finish.
The European tour, where Luiten and Van Driel play, rarely achieves as many top-100 finishes in a world ranking that has been more biased toward the PGA Tour in the last year.
Luiten has five top-20 finishes this year, including a tie for 14th at the Dubai Invitational, where Tommy Fleetwood defeated McIlroy by one stroke.
Van Driel won the Magical Kenya Open in February, his first win on the European Tour. That tournament featured just two players in the top 100.