Rugby yes, golf no

The Times has an article by John Hopkins about the bid by golf to get into the Olympics:

The most important thirty minutes in the history of golf will occur on Monday, when a well-rehearsed team will advocate the inclusion of the game in the 2016 Olympics to the executive board of the International Olympic Committee. Whether or not golf should be in the Olympics is not a hot topic among golfers but that should not diminish the debate. Golf was an Olympic sport in 1904. It is time it was again.
Golf has sixty million participants in 120 countries, making it one of the world's most popular sports in terms of players and followers, and were it to become an Olympic sport then financial support would be made available to grow the game even more. “In order to jump-start interest and support of the sport, you need money,” David Fay, executive director of the United States Golf Association, said recently. “The best way to get that is through two sources— your government or the national Olympic committee. For these countries, such as Croatia or Russia, there's no substitute for it being an Olympic medal sport.”
The Olympic ideals embody sportsmanship and integrity. So, too, do those of golf, which remains a game in which players call penalties on themselves and wish their opponents well at the start and conclusion of a round. The sport is considered by other sports to be largely untouched by drugs, gambling or any other controversy. Indeed there is a school of thought that opposes golf's inclusion in the Games on the ground that by doing so golf would be sullying itself.
It is true that the Olympics would not represent the pinnacle of achievement for participants, who will continue to regard the four major championships as the ultimate prizes. But that is true of tennis, too. It is also true that another 72-hole strokeplay event would be repetitive of almost every other tournament and that many of the game's leading players would not qualify.
But the format has the approval of the game's stars. Present plans allow for sixty men and sixty women to participate, with the world's top fifteen gaining automatic entry. The rest of the field would be filled by the highest world-ranked players from countries that do not already have two players represented.
There are eight different countries represented in the leading fifteen players in the men's game and six in the women's game. Tiger Woods, the best male player, was born to an African-American father and a Thai mother. The best woman player, Lorena Ochoa, is a Mexican. Isn't this what the Olympics is meant to be? Truly international competition.
I hope that golf's campaign succeeds and that it becomes the moment the game rids itself of its shabby attitude towards women. I first wrote the following paragraph in the mid-1980s and so little has changed in the meantime that three months ago I was able to write it again. “This country has had a Queen reigning over us for nearly sixty years and for a good few of those years a female Prime Minister led the Government in Westminster but despite this it is still possible for a man to say to his wife: ‘Darling, we can share a bed and a bank account but we can't share the tee straight after breakfast on a Saturday or Sunday morning.'”
In this regard it struck me as odd that IOC representatives were invited to attend the Masters in April. If I were making a case for an all-embracing game to be included in the Olympic Games I don't think I would have used a men-only golf club in the south of the United States with only a few non-white members as an exemplar.
Despite this, and in contrast to the half-hearted attempt to get golf into the Olympics in 1996, Ty Votaw, a vice-president of the PGA Tour in the US, has led a good campaign, resulting in golf and rugby sevens being the favoured candidates for 2016.
A few decisions in golf recently have been made on the basis of “for the good of the game”— such as staging the Ryder Cup in Spain in 1997— and this is another one of those decisions. Is the game strong enough within itself to embrace a new concept? I certainly hope so. Golf should be in the Olympics. It belongs there.

SportsIllustrated.com has one about the same attempt by rugby:

Rugby sevens is a fashionable choice to be on the shortlist of two sports to join the Olympic Games in 2016.
The Sevens World Cup at Dubai in March showed what the short-form version of rugby could add to the games, and was apparently admired by observers sent from Olympic headquarters.
"My understanding is we got a very good report from Dubai,'' Mike Miller, bid leader and secretary general of the International Rugby Board, said on Friday. Rugby may also have a very important friend on the International Olympic Committee executive board, which will hear pitches from the seven bidding sports on Monday. The meeting in Lausanne is headed by IOC president Jacques Rogge, a regular in the 1970s Belgium rugby team and a passionate follower of the sport. "Yes, he likes rugby but everyone who sees it likes it as well,'' Miller told The Associated Press, pointing to Rogge's reputation for integrity. "He is a very honorable man and I'd say because he does like rugby he probably bends over backward to make sure we don't get any favored treatment. Maybe it works against us.''
Rogge will not have a vote on which two of rugby, baseball, golf, karate, roller sports, softball, and squash get to join the 26 Summer Olympic sports from 2016 onward. The board will meet again in August to choose which two sports the full IOC membership will vote on at their annual session at Copenhagen in October. That second poll could yet see both sports rejected by the members.
Rugby has come a long way since the IRB launched a world series in 1999. It is on the Asian and Commonwealth Games programs, and has been added to the Pan American Games and All Africa Games schedules for 2011. "Rugby is already a proven success in the multi-sports format,'' Miller said. "It's fast, it's exciting and easy to understand. It connects to young and family audiences. Dubai just proved all that.''
The Sevens World Cup attracted 80,000 spectators over three days of action featuring 24 men's teams and 16 women's. The Olympic proposal is for twelve teams in each gender playing over two days in stadiums shared with other sports.
"We know that when people go and see it they fall in love with it,'' Miller said. "Going to events and sitting with IOC members who hadn't necessarily seen sevens before, they were all impressed.'' Sevens was far removed from the established 15-a-side game played by three million in 116 countries, and which featured in four Olympics from 1900 to 1924.
Miller believes a gold medal would be the game's pinnacle. If granted Olympic status, the IRB would scrap the Sevens World Cup and mandate clubs worldwide to release players for the tournament and qualifying events, satisfying an IOC request to bring the sport's best talent to the show. The bid also expects to score well on a favorite Olympic theme of universality, giving smaller nations a chance to succeed. The men's semifinals in Dubai featured Argentina, Kenya, Samoa, and Wales, the eventual champions, while Fiji and Tonga were also competitive. Kenya captain Humphrey Kayange will help make the presentation on Monday, joining Cheryl Soon, captain of the Australia women's World Cup winners, and Kazakhstan player Anastassiya Khamova.