Aussie Marcus Fraser shot an opening round 63 on the par 71 Olympic course. Rose climbed up the leaderboard to three under par in the first round, one ahead of Team GB team-mate Danny Willett.
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Japan’s Koji Take, right, takes a shot as Australia’s Joel Swift defends during their men’s water polo preliminary round match at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Wednesday, Aug. 10, 2016.
Justin Rose has led the counter arguments to Rory McIlroy’s suggestion Olympic golf does not matter to elite players. “You’re playing for the flag and it’s a pretty cool feeling”. Hopefully that will last for the whole week.
“One of the hurdles men’s golf now faces is that they suggested it would be the biggest thing in the sport, but they’ve had some of the top players pull out”.
Fittingly, it was a 44-year-old Brazilian, Adilson da Silva, who was handed the honour of striking the first Olympic golf shot in the modern era at 7.30am, a time when most of the swimmers, gymnasts, boxers and beach volleyball heroes were tucked up in the Olympic Village. And as animals on golf courses goes, the capybara do not come close to matching the Bighorn sheep over at PGA West and SilverRock Resort in La Quinta.
International Golf Federation Peter Dawson President turned and flashed two thumbs up when the first group teed off. “Or the beginning of a new one”.
It was also appropriate that the first three-ball of the Olympic competition contained DeLaet, whose countryman, George Lyon, was the last person to capture a precious gold medal in the dying embers of golf’s last flirtation with the Olympics 112 years prevously. And he knows his history.
A day earlier, Japan’s Kohei Uchimura added to his wonderful record in the individual all around: He won the worlds in 2013, 2014 and 2015 and was the defending gold medalist.
The field includes six major winners – current British Open champion Henrik Stenson of Sweden, Ireland’s Padraig Harrington, England’s Justin Rose and reigning Masters champion Danny Willett, two-time Masters victor Bubba Watson of the United States of America and Germany’s Martin Kaymer.
“It’s good to see a lot of flags out there – I was spoiled – there were a lot of Swedes that made there way to Royal Troon and it feels like we carried on in the same manner here”, Stenson. “There were more mobile phones and cameras than normal, I guess because it’s a different crowd out there than we normally have”.
The biggest surprise came from the Americans.
The overwhelming majority of players said they enjoyed the experience on a mostly sunny day that saw winds progressively increase, making conditions more challenging as the first round progressed.
Fraser needed just 21 putts and managed to get a good bit of his round completed before gusty winds made for some hard scoring. Fowler shot a 75, beating only two players – Rodolfo Cazaubon of Mexico and Lin Wen-Tang of Taiwan. That led to a double bogey and he wound up at 73. Patrick Reed and Bubba Watson were next best.
More than half of the field was at par or better.
How many times since the opening ceremony in Rio have your heard “The Girl from Ipanema?”
Kaymer did not single out any of the 21 golfers who withdrew from the Rio Games, nor did he suggest that every golfer is driven by money.
“The nerves don’t get me very many places”.
“It’s just unbelievable, the whole experience”, Kuchar said on the Golf Channel. Before I teed off, my head was everywhere.
A recap of the first round of the Olympic golf tournament wouldn’t be complete without mentioning the shot of the day from Great Britain’s Justin Rose.
He rallied for a 69, but on this day, the score was only part of what mattered.
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“That was one of those icing on the cake moments and when you’re the first to do anything, no one can ever take that away from you”, Rose said.
