'It is simply mindblowing': Professional sounds off on Olympics snub

Regardless of qualifying for the Olympics, Joost Luiten won’t be representing his nation in Paris on the 2024 Video games — however not by selection.

As a substitute, the Nationwide Olympic Committee of the Netherlands Sports activities Federation is declining to ship Luiten, the 148th-ranked golfer on the earth and Fortieth-ranked participant within the Olympic qualification standings, and two different golfers to the video games as a result of it doesn’t consider the three stand an opportunity of medaling.

Doug Ferguson of the Associated Press was the first to report that whereas 4 golfers, two male and two feminine gamers, certified to symbolize the Netherlands in Paris based mostly on marks set by the Worldwide Olympic Committee, only the LPGA and LET’s Anne van Dam will compete at Le Golf Nationwide.

The Nationwide Olympic Committee of the Netherlands Sports activities Federation is the one NOC to have further qualifying guidelines for golfers within the Olympics. To symbolize the nation on the video games, you could both be a prime 100 participant on the earth or earn a excessive end in a sanctioned match within the run-up to the Olympics.

This stands in distinction to the IOC’s qualifying standard of taking the top two eligible players (and as much as 4 if all within the top-15 in both the Official World Golf Rating or Rolex Rating) from every nation till the fields are crammed to 60 gamers for both men and women.

The 38-year-old Luiten hasn’t completed higher than T11 in his 13 DP World Tour begins this season. Each he and Darius van Driel certified to symbolize the Netherlands, however neither will accomplish that. Nor will Dewi Weber within the girls’s draw.

Luiten blasted his nation’s Olympic committee on social media Wednesday morning after the information broke.

“It’s simply mindblowing that they are saying I can’t end prime 8 on the @olympics, @nocnsf have completely no clue about golf,” Luiten wrote on Instagram Wednesday. “Additionally they’ve modified the standards’s in dec 2023, if that they had these standards’s from the beginning in june 2023 I’d have certified at 2 seperate occasions. That’s much more painfull to me! 

“I simply don’t get it! Usually Holland, they solely perceive the standard dutch sports activities, clearly not golf. So unhappy and painful.”

That is the second time Luiten has been the sufferer of those further {qualifications}. He competed within the 2016 Rio Video games, which was golf’s return to the Summer season Olympics after greater than 100 years when he was ranked within the prime 60 of the OWGR. In 2021, Luiten was stored out of the 2020 Summer season Olympics as a result of he was ranked outdoors the highest 200 on the earth.

The NOC’s justification for the additional {qualifications} is that they filter out gamers who haven’t proven they’ll end within the top-8 of the Olympic match and contend for a medal.

Paradoxically, Rory Sabbatini was ranked No. 161st when he fired a final-round 61 to assert Silver on the 2020 video games and bronze medalist C.T. Pan was ranked 181st. Luiten and van Driel are anticipated to get replaced by Joel Girrbach from Switzerland and Tapio Pulkkanen from Finland, each of whom are ranked outdoors the OWGR prime 350.

Jack Hirsh

Golf.com Editor

Jack Hirsh is an assistant editor at GOLF. A Pennsylvania native, Jack is a 2020 graduate of Penn State College, incomes levels in broadcast journalism and political science. He was captain of his highschool golf crew and not too long ago returned to this system to function head coach. Jack additionally nonetheless *tries* to stay aggressive in native amateurs. Earlier than becoming a member of GOLF, Jack spent two years working at a TV station in Bend, Oregon, primarily as a Multimedia Journalist/reporter, but in addition producing, anchoring and even presenting the climate. He might be reached at [email protected].