“The Olympic inclusion is the biggest “grow the game” opportunity for golf”. Boos and whistles and shushes echoed around center court.
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“It’s inspiring”, Fowler said of Olympic spectating.
The format for the men’s and women’s events, which are being contested over 72 holes of strokeplay, has been described by Gary Player – the nine-times Major victor who is here aged 80 as captain of the South African team – as “a grave mistake” with the sport not guaranteed an Olympic future beyond Tokyo 2020. Not in all sports, but so numerous bigger ones.
“I’m very confident golf’s players over the coming Olympic Games will all come and play”. “In Brazil, people get insane, and it’s very nice”. “Golf needs to be a very good and supportive member of the Olympic family and we’re working at that very hard, playing our part and not just trying to do something well once every four years”.
“All sports in the Olympics are fast, you don’t want medal rounds that are slow, you want matchplay or foursomes, something you can play in under four hours”, Player said.
He hasn’t even met the other Irish qualifier, Seamus Powers, who plays on the Web.com Tour. And he had more than just the best players in mind when he created it. Some of the loudest roars so far came on the second-largest court, where the Brazilian doubles team of Bellucci and Andre Sa upset second-seeded brothers Andy and Jamie Murray of Britain in the first round Sunday. This is golf in the Olympics. The objects of their cheers and jeers can shift from set to set, game to game and even point to point. “They will always be able to say they are Olympians and whoever wins the medals will have something to carry with them for the rest of their lives. They are glad we chose to come”. They love showmanship and, perhaps not surprisingly, passion.
Her arms churning effortlessly through the water, Ledecky touched almost 5 seconds ahead of her closest pursuer and quickly whipped around to look at the scoreboard.
“It’s different than your average tennis crowd, ” Williams said.
“Goosebumps all over the place, from the first to the last second, ” Flipkens said.
“I was pumped”, Ledecky said.
But when Brown twisted his ankle and then tried to play through the injury, cheers poured down from the stands.
So it was shortly after arriving in Brazil that American water polo player Josh Samuels, a rookie at the Games, met a veteran cyclist who offered some interesting advice, one athlete to another. That 10:35 p.m. match may give Iranian women the first chance to see the team in action. These class of owls will burrow holes but golfers need not worry, for they will get a free drop if their golf balls winds up in any of the holes. Said praised his French teammates, some of whom managed to qualify for event finals later this week despite being visibly rattled after watching Said leave the Rio Olympic Arena on a stretcher.
RECORD ROUT: Diana Taurasi and the US women’s basketball team opened their Olympics with a record rout, smashing Senegal 121-56 while setting Olympic marks for most points in a game, margin of victory and assists (36).
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“Who is not shouting has problems”. Probably asked the most about Jordan and Rory (McIlroy) and I told them I tried to get Jordan down here as much as possible and told them we all respect the decisions that were made, whether it was anything around schedule, health concerns or anxious about security and that’s possibly one thing that I’ve relayed back since we’ve been down here. “This is such a treat, and we don’t have a better way of expressing it”.
