IMHO,
I am not the biggest Lupica fan, but he once said "if the Olympics is not the be all and end all of a sport, it does not belong in the Olympics." I agree. That applies to hockey, basketball, tennis, baseball, soccer, and certainly to golf.
I kind of like Rugby. Its hard to follow in the USA, but it seems to also fit in to the above catagory as well. It has an organized system of international competition.
Baseball is closely followed in the USA, Canada, Japan, Taiwan, the ex-Spanish Carribbean, Mexico, Venezuela, and has a reasonable following in Columbia, Panama, South Korea, and elsewhere. That is plenty. The problem with baseball in the Olympics is that the US MLB do not play, as those in the NHL and NBA do.
Now to golf. We already determine the best golfer, every year, at the Augusta National Golf Course, on the first Sunday in April.
How would you set this up? If its just an individual medal play competition, then its indistinguishable from the four Majors. Actually the USA Olympic Trials would be a better tournament than the actual Olympics.
And, if you look at the two Cups (Ryder and President's) the USA holds an advantage versus "Europe" and "not Europe". The USA in a team deal vs any single country is a competition for second, even if Woods did not play. The USA could pick five 10 man teams and they would finish 1st-5th.
Actually, the women's competitions would be far more interesting. My money would be on Korea.
And, lastly, unless NBC is willing to just spool up golf on a channel by itself, you would not get to see the competition in the way we are used to seeing Majors covered.