Tiger Woods has said he would compete at the 2016 Olympics if golf was added to the Games programme after an absence of more than a 100 years.

Golf is vying with rugby, squash, karate, roller sports, baseball and softball and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) will announce a shortlist of two sports today. In two months' time a final vote will decide whether those two sports will be part of the Games programme.

"If I'm not retired by then, yeah," Woods, 33, told reporters with a broad grin while preparing for this week's US PGA Championship at Hazeltine National.

Again asked if he would compete at the Olympics in 2016 when he would be 40, the American world number one replied: "Yep."

Woods, a 14-times major winner and arguably the greatest player of all time, has been actively involved in golf's push for a return to the Olympics.

In April, he wrote personally to the IOC member for the United States in support of the International Golf Federation's bid.

"Golf is a truly global sport and it should have been in the Olympics a while ago," Woods said. "If it does get in, I think it would be great for golf, and especially (for) some of the other smaller countries that are now emerging in golf.

"It's a great way for them to compete and play and get the exposure that some of these countries aren't getting."

Three-times major winner Padraig Harrington, the defending champion at Hazeltine this week, also expressed enthusiasm for golf's Olympic bid.

"I'd love to be an Olympian," the Irishman said. "Doesn't that sound good? Imagine us being Olympic athletes. I think it would be fantastic for golf."

Golf, which first featured as an Olympic sport in Paris in 1900 and most recently in St Louis in 1904, failed in its latest bid for inclusion at the 2012 Games.