"Certainly, the risks are well worth the potential rewards."

Ron Sirak is hopeful that golf in the 2016 Olympics "perhaps" will have a similar golden moment as hockey in 2010, and writes that the "risks are well worth the potential rewards."

But I would ask, what risk is golf taking? Looks to me like it's the same old story: our sport is special, our athletes call penalties on themselves, they don't cheat their wives and we have Tiger, so we'll just wheel them out and the world will fall in love. It won't work that way for golf anymore and this entitled attitude certainly won't win over Olympic audiences drawn to once-in-a-lifetime thrills and patriotic rooting brought on by the presence of team formats.

An argument against Olympic golf is that it will detract from the pro tours, particularly the major championships, by disrupting the middle of the season. And some say Olympic gold will never outshine the Masters green jacket or the British Open's silver claret jug. They are correct.

But any disruption will be more than made up for by the exposure it will create. When the Americans tied the game with 24.4 seconds to play, it easily outshone any moment the NHL season has produced this year and most any other. And while it may be true Olympic gold in golf will never be the equivalent of winning a major, it will carry with it a special meaning all its own.