Philadelphia, PA (My Sportsbook) - Here are some rantings from the world of professional golf. Sort of.

OLYMPIC GOLF

With the most recent summer Olympic Games behind us, I'm left with one question, where's golf?

There are people riding horses, handball, water polo and synchronized diving for crying out loud, but no golf. What gives?

Well for starters, there's the age old problem of politics and money. I believe in my heart of hearts that the International Olympic Committee would like to have golf in the next summer Olympics, but there are some serious questions that need to be answered.

First of all, in order to promote this as a premiere golf event, organizers would ask very obvious questions such as, "Will Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson and Ernie Els play?" This cannot be answered right away and is the biggest obstacle in holding it back.

Tiger, for example, has not truly embraced golf as an international concept. He made waves about skipping the last Presidents Cup when it was held in South Africa and in no small feat, has basically gotten the PGA Tour to stage the event in Canada next time the Internationals host.

Woods does play events overseas in Germany, Thailand and some other places. He's a history nut and is driven by the need to separate himself from all others. An Olympic gold medal is one way to do it. Hitting a fairway is another.

Golf is boasting about how international the sport has become. There are World Golf Championships events that scour as far as England. Americans don't like to travel, remember that. In all seriousness, golf is truly international as evidenced by the fact that 18 different countries are represented in the top-50 of this week's World Golf Rankings.

The bigger concern might be getting professionals at all to participate. One school of thought is to let the amateurs compete, but the IOC doesn't like that and might bounce baseball from the Games because Barry Bonds and Albert Pujols can't play. Amateurs are an interesting idea, but the bottom line is they don't bring the bacon that pros do.

A little side note, I have not addressed women's golf and that's because I don't think there would be a problem. The ladies would go to Neptune to play in the Olympics.

So that leaves money. PGA Tour events offer large purses. This is not newsworthy, but would professional golfers be willing to forego a paycheck in order to go for the gold? Hard to tell. I guess it would depend on their patriotism and how likely they are to win anything.

I watched about as much of the summer Olympics as I did reruns of "Judging Amy." Call me a sucker, but I still believe that at least in the first couple of Olympics, the top guys would go. It's the Olympics and although they don't mean squadoosh to me, athletes might take them differently.

As a person fixated on solving problems, not creating them, I offer this plan as my way to make it happen.

At the beginning of the Olympic year, each country's governing body puts together its four-player team, with a captain/coach/token worthless figure head. It can come up with whatever criteria it takes. Then we have qualifying in the winter at a geographically neutral place (cough California cough). The top-16 teams make it to the Olympics.

Once we've made it to the Olympics, here's how we roll. Sixty-four players in a 72-hole stroke-play event. We'll give medals for individuals as well as the team. Low score wins. That simple.

Concerns. Competitiveness. Well if we went strictly by the current rankings, the U.S. would be represented by Tiger, Phil, Davis Love III and Jim Furyk. That's pretty good and one would think they'd be favored.

But, by the same rankings, South Africa would send Ernie Els, Retief Goosen, Rory Sabbatini and Trevor Immelman. England sends Paul Casey, Luke Donald, Lee Westwood and Ian Poulter. You get my point. Yes, the Americans would be favored, but the games would be more competitive than you think.

Don't get me started on the women's event. That sucker would be loaded with good teams from the U.S. to Korea to Sweden to Australia.

Next issue is who would be in and who would be out. Here's what I mean, are there 16 countries that could be in this? Yes, there are, but some people are going to run the risk of never getting a chance to win Olympic gold. If Vijay Singh can find three more Fijians to play, more power to him, but that might be an uphill battle. Lorena Ochoa might be duking it out with Michelle Wie for years but Ochoa is probably not going to get to the Olympics unless Mexico has a female golfing renaissance in the next four years.

Are there enough world-class golf courses at these cities? Come on. New York and London are the favorites to win the bid for 2012 and I think there are a few venues that might be willing to take on the cash cow that Olympic golf could be.

For golf to be truly international, the Olympics are the next step. It can work and it's up to the governing bodies of the sport to reach for the gold.

RANDOM THOUGHTS

The ending sentence of that column made me openly weep.

Kudos to Ryder Cup captain Bernhard Langer on a job well done. Colin Montgomerie and Luke Donald were the right choices and make this European team outstanding. This event will be close.

In the next few weeks, I'm going to tinker with the format of this column. I'm thinking of adding my own rankings for the men, LPGA, Champions and Nationwide, as well as answering five questions about what happened the week before and what will happen the next week. We'll see.