Aug 22, 2016
Golf puts on a show on grandest stage in sports
Tens of millions of people around the world who don’t know a putter from a pound of butter watched golf’s successful return to the Olympics, Bob Weeks writes.
By Bob Weeks
It came in with a bumping, stutter-stepping thud — top players opting out, Zika virus scares, course construction delayed time and again, capybaras and snakes lurking … The list was long.
But when play began and the golfers in attendance decided the Olympics really was something worth playing for, something unusual happened: We began to care.
Not just us Canadians, the defending men’s champions from 112 years earlier. Of that there was little doubt.
Nor just the members of the International Golf Federation, who had worked tirelessly, although not always along a straight line, to get golf back in the Games.
And not only those players who had always been ready to come to Rio and built their year around the trip, like Henrik Stenson, Inbee Park, Suzann Pettersen and Justin Rose.
No, it was more than that. The entire sporting world seemed to care. Oh, there were a few uninformed click-baiters trotting out the same tired old stories about golfers not being athletes, but golf put on a show on the grandest stage of them all.
As big as the Masters and the Open and the U.S. Women’s Open all are, they are dwarfed by the Olympics. Tens of millions of people around the world who don’t know a putter from a pound of butter watched golf. Will that lead to more players? We’ll likely never know but at the very least, there is a possibility.
There were many who weren’t willing to take a chance on Olympic golf and specifically Olympic golf in Rio – male players (and by extension, their agents), talking heads on TV and loudmouths on social media. But those who did found out what the Olympics can do and almost always does. It builds a global community, broken up by nations but without barriers of any kind. Golf was welcomed into that village.
Just look at the social media accounts of golfers like Bubba Watson or Lexi Thompson to see how quickly they embraced being Olympians and mingling with other athletes. See how impressed they are with the dedication and hard work of swimmers, runners and throwers.
And the feeling was mutual. The morning before she left for her first round, Alena Sharp found a note pinned to her door. It was from the Canadian women’s basketball team and it said: “Good luck in your Olympic debut. We are all behind you, cheering you around the course.” And there’s the difference, what separates the Games from everything other experience these players have gone through.
“In terms of golf, it's no different,” said Brooke Henderson, when asked to describe what sets the Olympics apart from regular LPGA events. “It's four solid rounds of golf, stroke play, individual, nothing's different. It's just a different golf course and a different location.
“But the things that go on around it, all the other sporting events, seeing other athletes, in the Olympic Village, which are not normally our normal accommodations. Seeing other athletes and being so close to them all the time, it's just something different and very cool. As for the people that didn't come, I totally respect their decisions. It was tough. There was a lot of stuff going down in Rio right now, and a lot of things that my sister and I took into consideration, as well. But we made the decision to come and it looks like a good one now.”
Yup. You have to think that the no-shows are probably kicking themselves at not taking a chance. One of those, Rory McIlroy, who told the world at the Open Championship that he was going to watch “events like track and field, swimming, diving, the stuff that matters,” admitted tuning in for the golf competition.
Just imagine if he’d played. He might have won a gold medal, might have taken that step up onto the podium and might have experienced something very few athletes ever get to know.
“This is definitely one of the special moments in my golfing career and in my whole life,” said women’s gold medal winner Inbee Park, “It feels great. Obviously representing your country, winning the gold, representing your country, it's so special. It's just really all I've wanted.”
Golf got all it wanted too. It got acceptance from the Olympic family and a stage on which to showcase its game and skills. Perhaps the expectations were low so the results shine a little brighter. But there was a thrilling final-hole battle in the men’s event, and one of the greatest players of her generation adding to her illustrious career in the women’s. You can’t ask for much more.
It’s not perfect by any means. There’s still the format, which was about as exciting as a manila envelope. There is chatter that some sort of team component might be in place for 2020 in Tokyo (when the second of golf’s guaranteed two-show run will be held). And hopefully four years from now the world feed includes commentators who know something more about golf than what they can read in the media guide.
There are no large hurdles to get over, however. Golf passed its maiden run with flying colours.
In September 2017, in Lima, Peru, the powers that be will meet to discuss future participation of golf (and several other sports) in the Games. The decision may be affected by the no-shows. They may ask: If golf can’t draw its biggest stars, why should it continue? It would be a shame to have come this far and then disappear again after just a couple of showings.
Golf can’t wait another 112 years for a shot at being part of the Olympics.