The bottom of the Olympic fields may test that notion, as the qualifiers include a woman who entered August ranked 540th in the world and a man who was ranked No. 398.
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There are three more rounds for Rose to play in. When the men’s Olympic tournament begins Thursday morning a few miles from the hysteria of the Olympic Village, the hope is that a new audience will be exposed to the game – predominantly in places where an Olympic medal causes young people to dream.
Earlier, golf made a quiet and subdued return to the Olympics with Brazil’s Adilson Da Silva hitting the first shot in front of a handful of spectators. There were some caimans (alligators) cruising around and I’m definitely going to stay away from them.
Da Silva’s unlikely path from being a caddie at a nine-hole golf course in Santa Cruz Do Sul in southern Brazil to taking the inaugural shot at the Rio Olympics was a circuitous route that took him to three continents.
“What happens during the Olympics is going to be the engine for what happens after the Olympics in the success of this golf course”, Hanse said.
Peter Dawson, the president of the IGF, said that since 2009, when golf was given a spot in these Games, the number of worldwide golf federations has grown by more than 40, to 147.
Who are the big names who will already be feeling the need to make big moves in the second round though? Rickie Fowler, answering before Watson, said he will be aggressive to the end. A dominant performance like Stenson at Royal Troon?
One unknown remains the size of the gallery.
Even the official NBC Olympics coverage crew have embraced the capybara “infestation”, realising that playing up the creatures’ involvement with the golf course has been a hit with viewers. The IGF said about 58 percent of the tickets have been sold, with Sunday a sellout of 12,000. If we wanted it to be hard and impose our will on the field, we would have done something different.
“If I’m third, I’m going to make sure I don’t go back to fourth real quick”, said two-time Masters champion and world No. 6 Watson. “My parents didn’t have much, so we had to do a bit of work. It’s a little trickier to find the golf and silver and bronze”. Still to be determined is how it feels with a gold medal – any medal – on the line.
Matt Kuchar took in table tennis on his first day as an Olympian.
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“The passion you see from these athletes… compared to them, we’re so weak in terms of our attitudes sometimes”, Kaymer said. But when I had my first (putt) of actual length outside of 15 feet, it seemed like the greens were a good two- to three-feet faster than the practice green.
