Rio 2016 Winning Clubhouse Bid: "Combining an atmosphere of conviviality with nature"

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Golf Australia was the only site I saw with a photo of the winning bid for the 2016 Olympic golf course clubhouse which drew interest from 82 design teams.

A large veranda showcasing the lush tropical landscape of Barra da Tijuca, combining an atmosphere of conviviality with nature — in the spirit of Rio — defines the character of the winning project in the competition to choose the design for the Rio 2016™ Olympic Games golf course’s club house, announced on Monday at the Brazilian Institute of Architects, Rio de Janeiro department (IAB-RJ).

The event was attended by the President of the Rio 2016™ Organising Committee for the Olympic and Paralympic Games (Rio 2016™), Carlos Arthur Nuzman; the committee’s chief executive, Leonardo Gryner; the President of IAB-RJ, Sergio Magalhães; the competition’s coordinator, Claudio Taulois; and the President of the jury, Fernando Alencar.
Pedro Évora and Pedro Rivera, of Rio de Janeiro, are the author and co-author respectively of the winning project.

Gil Hanse will be designing the Olympic course.

Final & Vital 2012 Ryder Cup Question: How Do We Use This Epic Ryder Cup To Get The Dreadful Olympic Format Fixed?

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Lorne Rubenstein said "the golf world itself came alive during the Ryder Cup. There’s nothing in golf like a Ryder Cup. Nothing."

Mark Lamport Stokes notes that the Ryder Cup "has never been more vibrant or in better health." And quotes Rory McIlory saying, "This is the most special and unique golf tournament we have, period."

In case anyone did not know it, last week reminded us that match play with a team and nationality component supersedes stroke play. Looking ahead to the 2016 Rio Olympics, longtime readers here know that golf returns with two 72-hole individual stroke play events. One for men, one for women.

And longtime readers know that from day one, I've viewed this as a highly unfortunate decision by the International Golf Federation that looked to players for input. Players who are good at playing golf, not so good in the vision department.

We also know there are also other issues that stuck us with a format that will not excite "the base" nor will it do much to bring in new fans of our great sport. In no particular order:

- There is the IOC's concern about beds in the Olympic Village, which resulted in just 60 players making the Olympic fields. I'm guessing Luke and Diane Donald, for instance, will not be bunking up in a glorified dorm room with the family come 2016.

- There is the dreadful scheduling mess that 2016 brings with the four championships, the ResetCup and the Ryder Cup at Hazeltine National, making anything over four days of competition a concern to the IGF. (It would have been an ideal year for the PGA to be played in the spring, but the PGA of America locked into Baltusrol for PGA anniversary reasons well before Rio was even selected.)

- A field of 60 instead of 64 makes a match play bracket that much more difficult. A small field with limits on the number of players from each country also limits the number of two-player team possibilities.

- There is the time-honored and depressing excuse that match play could leave television with an undesirable final. And that may be true, but as we've seen with the WGC Match Play, television also gets far more compelling action each day of the event instead of only on the final day as you get in stroke play.

- And of course, the relentless, withering, exhausting but consistent resistance to outside-the-box thinking or imagination coming from within the golf establishment's leaders who make up the IGF.

Olympic golf will not move any needle with its current 72-hole stroke play format and the Ryder Cup only reminded us of this. Even before the Medinah Miracle, Nick Faldo reiterated the need to re-think things last week, proposing that a reboot be considered and even mentioned the possibility of a mixed doubles element like Olympic tennis.

This year's Ryder Cup proved that match play, and preferably one with a team element, is more exciting and emotional than any sudden death playoff for the bronze medal will ever be.

So how, intelligent readers, do we begin the process of asking the IGF and the IOC to revisit this dead-on-arrival format so that golf can put its best foot forward in 2016?

"Bernhard's miss crossed my mind for half a second."

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There was actually some inexplicable social media criticism of NBC for airing a replay of Bernhard Langer's 1991 Ryder Cup putt right before Martin Kaymer's putt to ensure the cup returned to Europe.

Seems the putt crossed Kaymer's mind, too. From an Graham Otway's Dunhill Links Championship report today:

"I was standing behind the ball and then when I bent down and saw a footprint, Bernhard's miss crossed my mind for half a second. But it didn't have any influence in a positive or negative way. I saw the footprint, thought Bernhard, okay, gone. But it's in the past – it was 21 years ago.

"And if you stick to the facts it was the easiest putt you can have, even though with all the circumstances. It was uphill and inside the right line. There is no easier putt. We have to make that putt millions of times and I had to try to forget about the Ryder Cup."

It's just a shame Kaymer only made the putt to secure a tie. Unlike Molinari, who won the Cup for Europe!

Ernie And Adam's Buddies Trips: "We could write books on the stuff we did."

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I'll be curious to read the entire Tom Callahan piece on Ernie Els in the November Golf Digest, but the snippet released today would seem to suggest that Els is inching ever so close to admitting an addiction that he has been able to shake.

"Excessive drinking is not good for my health, my family or my game. There has definitely been a change, and I feel better for it. The boys from the club will say, 'Come over Friday and we'll have a couple of beers.' 'No thanks; I feel too good. I want to go practice. I want to be with my kids.' If I don't have one more party for the rest of my life, I'm still ahead of the game."

"Adam Scott traveled with me around the world. We could write books on the stuff we did. But fun stuff. I'm not talking about seedy crap. Just fun, almost like boy stuff."

I think it's time to bring back the Buddies Issue and share the details of boyish but not seedy drunken escapades!

Davis Love's Ryder Cup Diary: "If you need to blame somebody for this loss, blame me."

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I see a published "diary" and I brace myself for spin or few details, but not in the case of Davis Love's detail rich Ryder Cup recollections (presumably ghosted by SI's Michael Bamberger).

There are several fun insights like this:

I said to Scott Verplank, one of my assistants, "Which match do I watch?" You want to do everything, and you really can't do much of anything. You're a baseball manager, and every one of your pitchers is on the mound in the ninth inning of a Game 7. Jim Furyk walked by me after losing the 17th hole. The Ryder Cup on the line. I wanted to say something, but what could I say? He walked by me with that fierce game face of his on, and frustratingly I found myself saying nothing. I turned to Jeff Sluman, another of my assistants, and said, "Well, that was brilliant." But the fact is, in golf it's better to err on the side of saying too little than too much. And I'm sure there were times I said too much.

This is going to give his critics of Saturday afternoon's Keegan/Phil benching some ammunition. Personally, I just love the honesty:

After three sessions we had a considerable four-point lead, with the team of Keegan Bradley and Phil Mickelson winning three times. Fred Couples, another of my four assistants, said to me, "Man, that Keegan Bradley is on fire. Ride him all the way to the house."

In other words, he wanted me to play the Bradley-Mickelson team again on Saturday afternoon in Session IV. I know a lot of fans and commentators were thinking the same thing. But Phil told me he was tired after three matches and wanted to rest for the Sunday singles. There was no reason to play Keegan with a partner with whom he had not practiced. There was no reason to mess with order. Things were going according to plan. In Session IV, Europe, and most especially Ian Poulter, caught fire late and won two matches. Still, everything was good. A four-point U.S. lead. Enter Seve.