The Americans didn’t quite phrase it that way but they are happy to be here, especially Fowler, who marched in the opening ceremony. If we have a great champion and a great competition, that’s going to bode well.
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Olympic golf tees off on Thursday. I think it means more to him than nearly anyone else in the field and he knows how much it could help his place in history.
“It was always too important not to get finished and we’re pretty close to ideal”, Hanse said.
That’s when Watson, a two-time Masters champion and nine-time PGA Tour victor, interjected.
Joe Passov, senior editor, GOLF Magazine: Seven years ago, when they admitted golf back into the Olympics, I picked Sergio Garcia, and I’m not changing now. And while women’s golf is hardly as obscure as, say, rhythmic gymnastics, the Olympics will confer a new level of prestige on players whose accomplishments are often overlooked elsewhere.
The golfing community is split in terms of the value placed on the competition.
“We are just as worthy of being here as anybody else”, he stated. “But when Sunday comes, you will approach it differently, because whether you’re fourth or 20th, no one really cares”.
Garcia is an intriguing golfer, considering he has never won a major. Rafael Silva earned Brazil’s first gold medal of the games on Monday in the 57kg division. He was on the course with Rickie Fowler and Henrik Stenson and the rest of the best.
Big names like Dustin Johnson and Jordan Spieth of the United States, Rory McIlroy of Northern Ireland and Jason Day of Australia chose not to participate in the 2016 Olympics because of health concerns-but Stenson is not the lone major victor to compete in Rio. They often live in packs of a dozen or more.
“Hopefully they get the opportunity to do it again in 2020 in Tokyo and hopefully it’s an opportunity they take”.
“I didn’t try and go for some dead lifts on 80 or 90kg when there is some guy holding 180kg straight up on both arms”.
The Olympic Games are in her home country of Brazil, golf has returned to the Olympics for the first time since 1904, and she was fortunate enough to qualify.
Trawling through their social media, it is clear they share Rose’s enthusiasm for the tournament and the prospect of landing a medal.
Knowing it was going to be a hectic year from a schedule standpoint, Stenson made the decision to skip two World Golf Championship events: the WGC-Dell Match play, two weeks prior to the Masters; and the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational, which was two weeks prior to The Open.
Johnson opted out, while US PGA champion Jimmy Walker was not one of the four Americans to qualify via the world rankings for the 72-hole strokeplay event. Bottom: a capybara, left, and an owl can be spotted at the Olympic golf course.
Although he didn’t give specifics, Fowler left little room for interpretation on Tuesday during the US team’s press conference, suggesting he’s been in regular contact with those who skipped golf’s return to the Games after a 112-year hiatus.
The best players have snubbed it in Rio but Marcus Fraser believes the Olympics will become golf’s fifth major in time.
As for Sands, he was little more than a fill-in for the 1900 Olympics, and also represented his country in tennis and “real tennis” in Paris.
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This will be the third time golf has been included in a Summer Olympics.
