“Just something about being able to wear your colors that gets me going.I’m having goose bumps just thinking about it”.
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Player, the nine-time major victor and captain of the South Africa team, described the decision as a “grave mistake”, arguing that a matchplay format (where points are awarded for each hole won against the player’s opponent) would have been better suited for audiences.
“There is no combined?” he followed. “No team event whatsoever?” “When they first talked about it, if there were four Americans it was the two highest ranked and they were going to combine the scores for a team event”. “No team at all?”
Kuchar thought the Olympics was a team competition until this week. Or perhaps he is the epitome of the taking-it-one-week-at-a-time cliché that most touring pros strive to achieve.
The men and women will compete in medal play over 72 holes, just like they do throughout the golf season.
“We are up there as well and we are playing good golf”.
The last four all cited fears over the Zika virus which has been prevalent in Brazil in recent months, although McIlroy has since been painfully honest about the fact that he feels golf is an irrelevance at the Olympics, and that he will be watching “events like track and field, swimming, diving – the stuff that matters”.
“I certainly was never going to be part of the team, or at least when I became part of the team I knew I wasn’t in the top two (at Olympics)”. Player asked on BBC 5 Live.
Watson is the defending champion here in the heart of CT, while Reed is an annual participant, as well.
Three other Olympians are playing in Cromwell – Germany’s Alex Cejka, Denmark’s Soren Kjeldsen and Ireland’s Padraig Harrington.
While he admitted it’s been hard to pick and choose his schedule this summer, like Watson, Reed insisted he never seriously considered skipping the Travelers this week.
‘I would have given anything to play. “I knew I was strictly there as an individual”.
“That was my initial impression of what was happening with the Olympics, but I’m incorrect on that”. [Dustin Johnson] kind of helped me out there [by withdrawing].
Reed, Watson and Kuchar have each made tentative plans to not only compete next week, but attend other events, as well.
It seems the Zika-spreading mosquitoes were not the only deadly creatures that kept the top golfers away from the upcoming Rio Olympics.
“It’s all about appeal”, Watson said.
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The course was constructed a year ago despite protests from environmentalists who argued carving out a chunk of the reserve would have a devastating impact to the rare butterflies, pines, and other rare species that call the reserve home.
