Golfweek magazine reported that Peter Dawson, the former R&A chief executive who is president of the IGF, walked a few holes with Fowler on Saturday at the Old Course.
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McIlroy, however, does not believe illegal substances can necessarily help a golfer. For example, McIlroy says he could be using human growth hormone “and get away with it”. So it’s going to be a fun occasion, and I’ve never been to an Olympic games in any capacity.
McIlroy spoke Tuesday after a practice round for the British Open.
As for that future, Spieth affirmed it’s a “major goal” of his to qualify for the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo, noting it will be hard to watch the opening ceremony in Rio knowing he could have been there. He called those sports “the stuff that matters“.
Dawson – who played a crucial role in convincing the International Olympic Committee to approve golf’s inclusion for the first time in 112 years – reckons the players’ “overreaction” will hurt golf’s chances of being part of future Games. But golf is a fickle game, and players such as Woods, who remain on top for years at a time, don’t come along very often.
“I don’t think it was as hard a decision for me as it was for him”, the Northern Irishman told a news conference ahead of the 145th British Open that starts on Thursday. The top 15 players in the world rankings – including Henderson – are all eligible with a limit of four for any country. “This was something I very much struggled with”, Spieth said at Royal Troon, home to the 145th British Open that begins Thursday. I didn’t get into golf to get other people into the game.
What do you think of Rory McIlroy’s comments surrounding golf at the Olympic Games? There will be a vote after the Rio games about whether golf should be kept beyond Tokyo in 2020.
“I can not imagine more spectacular backdrops for the world’s top sportsmen and women to showcase their talents to a watching world”, Nawal El Moutawakel said in a statement from the International Olympic Committee.
“I don’t know if it will affect it to the point they don’t bring it back”, he said.
The men will have eight of the top 15 in the world in Rio. But we do understand why these individual decisions have been taken.
“It hurts”, Dawson said of the disappointing men’s field.
None of the world’s top four golfers will play in Rio after Jason Day and Dustin Johnson also made a decision to opt out.
The build-up to this week’s Open on Scotland’s west coast has to some extent been overshadowed by the Olympic debacle.
Jordan Spieth of the USA gets up after attending a press conference ahead of the British Open Golf Championship at the Royal Troon Golf Club in Troon, Scotland, Tuesday, July 12, 2016.
Spieth had spoken highly of playing in the Olympics until recent months over concerns about security in Rio and uncertainty about the mosquito-borne Zika virus. Not the being-a-notch-lower-in-my-book part, but skipping the Olympics. Day and Johnson have said they plan on having more children.
The PGA Championship is two weeks later, followed by the Olympics two weeks after that, with lesser tournaments crammed in along the way.
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Usain Bolt’s quest for more Olympic gold is back on, as expected.
