Day Out: Blame It On Rio? Is This A One-Off?

Dave Shedloski weighs the comments of Jason Day and the statement from Shane Lowry adding themselves to the list of Olympic WD's, and in the short term Rio is taking the blame.

He writes:

Both said they are still fully committed to attending the World Cup in December in Australia. Yes to the World Cup and no to Olympic gold.

Blame it on Rio. All of it.

Both men, in their 20s and intending to have children in the near future, cited the Zika virus in their decisions.

What remains to be seen: how the male golfers' view of Rio contrasts with athletes in all other sports. If the Games go off well and the virus is a non-story (big ifs), they will end up looking pretty bad. If it's a boondoggle and spreads the virus, then all of this will be forgotten.

This, however, may be wishful thinking if the above best case scenario plays out:

“Yeah, I think it is a one-off. It depends,” Day said. “Certain things we just don't know. Like something could happen elsewhere down the road, and unfortunately that could make people pull out. I just hope they look past this and go, ‘You know, we're looking at the bigger picture and trying to grow the game,’ and hopefully if they can do that, then the Olympics can stay -- the golf can stay in the Olympics and everyone can move on to hopefully Tokyo and try and play there.”

Jeff Babineau at Golfweek makes the point about other athletes grinning and bearing it only making golf look worse.

This may be a one-off situation and 2020 in Tokyo could be fine, but golf has no concrete place in the games beyond that. A decision on golf’s future rides on this year’s performance. Will the Olympic torch holders who make the big decisions give golf a pass? Or whisk golf away? Truthfully, if athletes in many other sports show up in Rio, you have to think golf’s future in the games has dimmed.

But as Luke Kerr-Dineen notes in calling the situation a disaster (I, the eternal optimist see silver linings galore), points out that lack of excitement over the format along with scheduling should not be discounted.