A Look at the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Field a Year Out

Sitting a year out from the finalization of the 2020 Tokyo Olympic participants, here’s how the field will be finalized, as explained by the International Golf Federation.  

From July 8^th, 2018 through June 29^th, 2020 is the women’s qualification period to earn Olympic Golf Ranking (OGR) points. These match the points earned for the Rolex Women’s World Golf Ranking Points.  

60 players will form the field. The top 15 players in the world are the first to qualify, with the limiter being that only four players can come from any one country in the top 15. 

If the field was finalized today, two countries would get four players- the Republic of Korea and the United States.  

The Republic of Korea would field Jin Young Ko, Sung Hyun Park, Jeongeun Lee6, and Inbee Park.

The United States would field Lexi Thompson, Nelly Korda, Jessica Korda, and Danielle Kang. 

Even though So Yeon Ryu and Sei Young Kim are in the top 15, because there are four Korean players ahead of them, they would not qualify for Tokyo as of today. 

Each country that has players that are eligible outside of the top 15 can have up to two players, with only one guaranteed based on order of the World Rankings. 

As of today, there are 34 countries in the field. 

Even though a country has a player in the top 15, doesn’t give them two players outside of the top 15. An example of this is the host country, Japan. Nasa Hataoka is 5^th in the World Rankings, and she’s joined by Ai Suzuki at 20^th in the World Rankings. 

For Japan to have more players, they would need Suzuki and Mamiko Higa, who is currently in 40^th in the Rolex World Rankings, to move into the top 15 before selections are finalized on June 29^th, 2020.  

No country is guaranteed a spot in the 60-player field. The first alternate is Noora Komulainen from Finland, who sits at 431^st in the Rolex Women’s World Rankings and would be the second Finnish player in the field along with Ursula Wikstrom, who’s the 51^st participant entrant. If Komulainen moves up past Manon De Roey, she would knock off Belize’s only participant, who is currently at 402^nd in the World Rankings.  

Here’s what the Olympic field would be as of today, June 29^th, 2019.