Roundup: You Can Really Feel The Love For Olympic Golf
/So moving to see so many coming around after months of moaning about golf in the Olympics.
As we get ready to not talk about it much until next fall when votes take place (and we are overcome with ResetCup fever!), I offer you an assortment of the glowing takes on the last two weeks in Rio.
Jaime Diaz in this week's Golf World:
In essence, Olympic golf has become the closest thing to the Ryder Cup: Worth it to play for free. A place—especially if it becomes, as expected, more of a team event—to deepen friendships. Something worth sacrificing for and not to be missed. Amid the distortions that come with professionalism, commercialism and politics, on the field at least, a chance for pure golf amid what aspires to be pure sport.
Linda Baker of Reuters in a piece that'll get picked up in plenty of places, declares golf a success and pushes the format-tweak narrative.
"I would like to see a two-man team. I think you should still have an individual medal, but I would like to see a team format to make things more exciting," said the United States' Stacy Lewis, who ended the women's tournament tied for fourth.
The golf industry pushed for the sport's inclusion to help boost participation, which has been slipping. Organizers were hoping that the newly built golf course designed by Gil Hanse could also help boost the game in Brazil.
For Gary Player, the legendary golfer who has been a vocal proponent of golf in the Olympics, the tournament had succeeded in cementing golf's status as an international sport. He tweeted at the conclusion of the Olympics, "Fantastic for six #golf medals going to six nations - Britain, Sweden, USA, South Korea, New Zealand & China... #growth."
I don't know about the growth part, but having a medalist from six countries is another one of those you-can't-script-it sidebars to the Rio golf experiment.
Bob Harig at ESPN.com on a post-Games narrative of athletes who contended or medaled: lots of new friends or old friends coming out of the woodwork.
"The reception globally has been astonishing,'' said Mark Steinberg, who is Rose's agent. "The reception he is receiving locally within the UK, it's astonishing to even Justin who is wearing a gold medal around his neck. He just can't believe the amount of people who are reaching out to him that maybe don't sit and watch golf on a Saturday and Sunday.
"Maybe you attribute that to the Olympic rings. Anything you want to attribute it to. It's been an astonishing appeal. It's just so great for these guys to get that type of response.''
Steinberg also represents Kuchar, and his phone has been ringing with potential endorsement possibilities for both medal winners. He also had three other players in the men's tournament.
Speaking of Kuchar, who didn't even know the format a week prior to the Games, he received a hero's welcome and is taking his bronze everywhere, writes Tim Rosaforte.
Kuchar kept it together on the Olympic Golf Course and flew home on Aug. 15 to a hero’s welcome. There were more than 100 people greeting his plane when it landed at Malcolm McKinnon Airport on St. Simons Island in Georgia. Chants of “Kooch!” and “USA, USA!” rang into the night when the Olympian appeared at the door of the plane, wearing his bronze medal.
If only Big Kooch had been around to see it, as he was when Matt won the Players Championship in 2012 and the WGC-Match Play and the Memorial in 2013. Or if he could see his great-grandsons, Cameron and Carson, show off his dad’s medal last week on St. Simons Island, whether it was going table to table at the local Starbucks or the grillroom at Frederica Golf Club.
“They got a big kick out of doing that,” Kuchar said. “They love checking it out, showing it off. I’ve pretty much kept it with me wherever I’ve gone. Most people want to see it and hold it.”
The Golf.com gang hailed all things Olympic golf, with a couple of strong points, including this from Josh Sens:
Personally, what I enjoyed most was seeing the women get an equal share of the spotlight as the men, playing on the same venue, with the same stakes. It was another reminder of how much fun the best women players are to watch. And unlike the men, pretty much all of the very best were actually there.
And this from Alan Shipnuck:
That we didn't miss any of the players who weren't there but, based on the longing in their texts and tweets, they know they missed out on something special.
Michael Bamberger wrote about the women's game getting a profile raise, even if weather wiped out chances of an even larger audience on network coverage.
I couldn't tell you what the man's level of interest in women's golf was before the Olympics. Whatever it was, now it's deeper.
Teddy Greenstein reviewed his Rio stay and highlighted the various sports covered for the Chicago Tribune, including this from golf's fourth place finisher:
Of all the wisdom dispensed over the last 17 days, my favorite came from a fellow Olympic newbie: Thomas Pieters, a Belgium golfer who played at Illinois.
Pieters described radios going off and cameras clicking during his backswing but shrugged off all the distractions, saying: "You deal with it. It's the Olympics. It's special."
Steve DiMeglio interviewed the IGF's Ty Votaw, instrumental figure in the entire Olympic golf pursuit and execution, who continues to credit players and caddies for their effort. But the crowds, which could have been disastrously small in Rio given attendance at some venues, brought an intangible element to both final rounds that should not be discounted.
Q: What stood out in Rio?
A: “The reception of the crowds for both the men’s and the women’s competitions. And the way the men and women embraced the Olympic experience. It was phenomenal to see their interaction with other athletes, their experiences in the Olympic Village, and how they responded to the crowds and the crowds responded to them, in a country that doesn’t have a lot of golf history.”
What also stood out? The ticket price was kept absurdly low, something golf tournaments looking for energy should keep in mind more often.
Iain Payten of the Daily Telegraph covers all things Rio with Australian team leader Ian Baker-Finch, whose most famous golfers (Day, Scott, Leishman) passed on Rio. He would would like to see a format tweak either way based on his three weeks in Rio.
Changing the format will help too, believes Baker-Finch. Instead of individual strokeplay, an element of a teams format will be attractive to athletes who play for themselves every week.
“I hoped all the way through the process that they’d go to the World Cup format of a singles and a doubles,” he said.
“I think you’d have had a stronger representation in the mens had theire been a two - man team. So still 72 holes but let’s have a singles and have a team, let’s add up the two scores.”
Payten's piece also includes this:
US RATINGS FOR GOLF MAJORS v OLYMPICS
Masters final round – 12.4 million
Olympic final round – 8.8 million
US Open final round – 5.4 million
PGA Championship final round – 5.3 million
British Open final round – 4.9 million
**Two more great reads about Rio golf, starting with Dottie Pepper writing for ESPN.com, who lists her positives and negatives from the Games.
I enjoyed these two gripes:
Justin Rose lost two Fed Ex Cup spots by winning the gold, and three Web.com Tour players -- Rodolfo Cazaubon, Cheng Tsung Pan and Seamus Power -- also lost important starts on that tour to be at the Olympics.
4. PGA Tour announcements of upgrades at the Tour Championship on the eve of the Olympics It was not quite as bad as the USGA announcing its new television deal with FOX and leaving longtime partners NBC and ESPN the night before the 2013 PGA Championship, but it was still very questionable when the focus should have been on the Olympics.
Mike Clayton, who caddied for Su Oh, takes the blame for a bad club on 13 Saturday, and writes a great overview of the week along with his thoughts on the course.
Su Oh, my boss for the week, had some sort of chance of a bronze medal when she birdied the 11th to get to seven under on the final day and three birdies from there would have done it. Instead, I made a mess of both a club and a shot at the difficult par-four 13th, she went long, made a double-bogey from a difficult spot in the back bunker and the hope was gone.
In the end, a tie for 13th was a pretty decent week, one in which every player who finished ahead of her was ranked higher in the game’s measurement of such things and she beat a handful, including Lexi Thompson and Sei Young Kim, both ranked in the top handful of players in the game.
