“I don’t think it would be appropriate [to play] given our decision on the Olympics”, Spieth said. With 18 other players having withdrawn, he was looked upon as someone whose commitment might ease the backlash against golf for its perceived indifference about the sport returning to the Olympics.
Advertisement
McIlroy’s comments at Royal Troon in the build-up to this week’s Open Championship have hinted at apathy among top players towards Olympic golf. Barring further defections, the US will be represented by Bubba Watson, Fowler, Patrick Reed and Matt Kuchar.
The women’s game has seen no such major withdrawals.
Asked to expand on that assessment, the vice president of the International Golf Federation, Ty Votaw, confirmed that no one associated with the course – from hundreds of construction workers to those now charged with keeping it in top condition – has been diagnosed with Zika. “Since they announced that golf would be in the Olympics, I said I want to get myself to Rio”. “You have that opportunity to win that that money, you become a product of it. And you can’t blame them for being that way. Obviously with golf being an outdoor sport played around the water out there 20, 30 miles out from the city, you are probably at higher risk than most other athletes in most other sports who are in much more of a contained environment”. “Maybe”, said Spieth, who doesn’t mind engaging with the critics.
“Why was it so hard?” he said.
“I believe in all the experts and everybody that’s taking care of this”. It wasn’t an easy decision for me.
Golf apparently ranks low on the list of sports McIlroy might watch during the Games in August. “This year I just had to try and weigh a risk that doesn’t present itself every year”.
Upon his decision, the world No. 3 was the last of the Fab Four to pull out of the Olympics, joining No. 1 Jason Day, No. 2 Dustin Johnson and No. 4 Rory McIlroy.
In recent months Spieth has played tournaments in OH and Pennsylvania, where incidence of Zika have been recorded. He also said, rather sarcastically, “I take great heart, though, from the fact we haven’t lost a greenskeeper yet”. “So I will be going back there, I just don’t think it’s appropriate this year”.
“I will be, I’m sure, at times, pretty upset that I’m not down there” in Brazil, he said.
“I thought about all of this ahead of time”. Because the organizing committee failed to raise the expected R-$280 million needed from ticket sales and advertising before the games that would have funded the opening and closing ceremonies, it requested funding from the federal government in June.
McIlroy missed last year’s Open at St. Andrews because he ruptured ankle ligaments in a freak accident on the soccer pitch, so he’s glad to be back playing in the oldest championship in golf.
“I will continue to carry it with me through these Games and for a while I think”.
“Golf’s in the Olympics in Tokyo in four years time and if I really feel the need to get that Olympic experience hopefully I can go there and do that”.
“Seven is the number of athletes who have appeared at seven Olympic Games or more, the outright record holder being Canadian show jumper Ian Millar, who made ten appearances between Munich 1972 and London 2012”. I got into golf to win.
Advertisement
There’s plenty of blame to go around, from skittish golfers who latched on to the threat of the Zika to justify their decisions to tone-deaf executives who made a mess of this year’s schedule, cramming too many important tournaments into too short of a time period. “I didn’t dream of winning a gold medal in golf as a kid”. The shuttered anti-doping laboratory for the Rio de Janeiro Olympics has been inspected by officials of the World Anti-Doping Agency, which could decide in late July 2016 if the laboratory gets re-accredited.
