Here’s a proposal for a unique and fun team format

SAINT-QUENTIN-EN-YVELINES, France – This has been great, but something is missing.

Sure, the American men’s golfers at this week’s Olympics tournament, like other countries, have been wearing the same outfits and the Team USA hats.

But they aren’t a team. Not really. Not when it counts.

They are competing for an individual prize only. Short of practice rounds together earlier this week, the Americans’ routines haven’t been different from any other golf tournament.

There’s no camaraderie, and that’s a shame.

“Once the tournament starts,” Scottie Scheffler said, “I think it’s best for us to stick to our normal routines, and that’s what we’ve been doing this week. Guys aren’t going to stick around and cheer me on at 18 because they’ve got to get ready for their round tomorrow.”

More: 2024 Olympics | How to watch | Men’s field | Women’s field

It’s good that top golfers have been experiencing all that an Olympics has to offer beyond prize money. It’ll keep them coming back and open to format changes that might have been a tougher sell a decade ago.

They’ve learned that the Olympics aren’t like any other golf tournament. It shouldn’t be set up like one.

A team aspect needs to be added to this.

Here’s my proposal:

For both the men’s and women’s competitions, keep the same field of 60. Play three rounds from Wednesday to Friday to decide the individual medalists. Then go down the leaderboard and start pairing up the top two golfers from each country. The first eight nations to have two players paired up based on the best scores get to advance those two players into a bracket for the weekend. Then it’s match play foursomes.

Quarterfinals and semifinals on Saturday. Matches for the gold and bronze medals on Sunday.

For example’s sake, if we did this and seeded teams by scores using the first two rounds of this Olympics, here’s the matchups you’d get:

• United States (Xander Schauffele/Scottie Scheffler) vs. Denmark (Thorbjorn Olesen/Nicolai Hojgaard)
• Spain (Jon Rahm/David Puig) vs. Belgium (Thomas Detry/Adrien Dumont de Chassart)
• Japan (Hideki Matsuyama/Keita Nakajima) vs. South Korea (Tom Kim/Byeong Hun An)
• Great Britain (Tommy Fleetwood/Matt Fitzpatrick) vs. Italy (Guido Migliozzi/Matteo Manassero)

Who’d have a problem with this?

Jon Rahm of Team Spain plays a shot from a bunker on the 18th hole in the second round of the men’s stroke play during the Paris 2024 Olympic Summer Games at Le…