Clash between the schedules of The Open with Wimbledon
It is planned that golf as a sport will be included in the Olympic Games in the year 2016. There are already many tournaments in the summer, such that it is getting difficult to devise a schedule that suits everyone.
Every tournament needs to take place on different dates. There should be no clash at all.
To accommodate everything, it is planned to move the British Open Championship by one week in the summer of 2016. Two major golf tournaments, the Ryder Cup and the golf's return to the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro are also going to take place in that summer.
Now the new issue arising is that there is a clash between the British Open Championship and Wimbledon. This clash would create a problem in Britain. It will be close to impossible to arrange both the tournaments at the same time.
Chief Executive of Royal & Ancient and the President of the International Golf Federation, which oversees Olympic golf, Peter Dawson also commented on this problem. He thinks that it needs to be thought out again. They need a new plan to accommodate everything.
In an interview, he said, “The Wimbledon date change does impact on this with regard to when it's most sensible to play the Open that particular year, so we are going to have to go slightly back to the drawing board on this”.
There are many things which are required to take under consideration before a decision is made about the schedule. The Olympics will require two weeks for golf - one week for men and the other for women.
“I think we all had this at the back of our mind at the start, 'wouldn’t it be nice to make the Olympic competition a little bit different, at least from the week in, week out competition?’” he added.
“Golf's bid was based on individual competition,” he said. “In order for that to be changed -- and I'm not sure that it ought to be changed -- but if it were to be, we'd have to get agreement from the IOC sports department”.
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