olympic golf: still a glorified exhibition or actually legit now?

[GreenReader]

I've been a loud skeptic of Olympic golf since Rio. The whole thing felt like an afterthought, guys pulling out left and right, a 72 hole stroke play event with no cut that was basically a watered down tour stop with some flags on the tee boxes. And that "growing the game" line every official trots out gets old fast.

But Paris kind of got me, and I hate admitting it. The field was legit. Scottie, Fleetwood, Rahm, Hideki, all of them actually wanted to be there. Watching Rahm melt down on the back nine while Scottie just surgically picked it apart was genuinely compelling. Hideki grinding for bronze like it was a major clearly meant something to him, and the crowd at Le Golf National sounded louder than half the tour stops I've sat through this year.

My problem is the format. 72 holes, stroke play, no cut, no team element. It's just a regular event with a different trophy. The Olympics is the one place you could actually get creative. Mixed team event, some match play, a 4 man team format, literally anything other than a carbon copy of a Thursday-Sunday tour event. They've got the field to pull it off now.

So yeah, I've flipped on whether it belongs on the schedule. I have not flipped on the format being lazy. Anyone else come around on this, or am I just getting soft in my old age?