On Monday, Jordan Spieth became the sixth male golfer ranked in the world's top 10 to withdraw from the upcoming Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, citing "health reasons" (translation: the recent spread of the Zika virus in Brazil).
Spieth's withdrawal, coming three days after U.S. Open champion Dustin Johnson's, seems like bad news for Olympic men's golf.
With only four of the world's top-10 players - and only 8 of the top 20 - -currently committed to participating, many fans are worried that men's golf will be dropped as an Olympic event after 2020.
This concern is misplaced because, simply put, the Olympics needs men's golf more than men's golf needs the Olympics.
Why? Because in addition to filling the coffers of IOC -members with extravagant gifts, the modern-day -Olympics exists to allow sports that don't have mainstream professional leagues (like track and field, -figure skating and gymnastics) to showcase -intense -competition and -compelling human interest stories to casual sports fans - most of whom will stop paying attention once the games have concluded.
Male golfers, on the other hand, compete on a successful professional tour that enjoys substantial coverage on both cable and network TV.
Its biggest stars are household names, and its biggest event (the Masters) is every bit as popular as any American professional sports -championship besides the Super Bowl.
Cynics might attempt to paint non-participating golfers as greedy for passing up the opportunity to represent their home countries without financial compensation.
This would be a great argument if it weren't for the existence of the Ryder Cup, which every two years induces the top golfers in the world into participating - without pay - in a flag-waving, high-fiving, crowd-roaring event.
The Ryder Cup's -atmosphere represents a stark contrast to the vanilla, investment firm-sponsored tournaments golf fans are accustomed to seeing, and it invariably creates an abundance of heart-pounding drama.
This summer's Olympics might very well create the same type of drama - just not among the world's top male golfers.
