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News From Golfdigest:
Finally, golf is happy.
It’s been awhile in 2016. The distress of Jordan Spieth at the Masters, the embarrassment suffered by the USGA at the men’s and women’s U.S. Opens, the messiness of completing the PGA Championship.
Then there’s the general malaise in overall participation as golf tries to accurately reposition itself in a rapidly changing culture.
Golf in the Olympics was supposed to be a continuation of the theme. At the 11th hour, the world’s top players were dropping out, giving the impression to many—and most consequentially, to the International Olympic Committee—that the Olympics didn’t matter to golf’s top performers. The Zika virus, security concerns and the environmental, political and economic crisis rocking Brazil made Rio de Janeiro an unready problem spot for the world’s biggest gathering.
But whatya know? Men’s golf in Rio turned out to not just exceed expectations. From the first practice rounds early last week to the medal ceremony on Sunday, it was the most joyful and proud golf tournament of the year, and perhaps many years.
After Justin Rose won with the sweetest of wedge shots from tight zoysia turf on the wonderfully conceived 18th hole of designers Gil Hanse and Amy Alcott’s Olympic Golf Course, the game’s power brokers—Tim Finchem of the PGA Tour, Mike Davis of the USGA, Pete Bevacqua of the PGA of America, Martin Slumbers of the R&A and others—all sat in the front row of the grandstand, seemingly connected by one continuous collective smile.
Agent Mark Steinberg, manager for both Rose and bronze medalist Matt Kuchar, was energetically walking while animatedly talking on his cell phone. Bubba Watson and Rickie Fowler showed up to continue their support of all things Olympic golf. Stacy Lewis and Lexi Thompson, in for this week’s women’s competition, were excited observers.
The afterglow had a distinctive Brazilian bounce, as a significant portion of the surprisingly large gallery of more than 10,000 fans—some rather green when it comes to watching golf—who had lined the fairways stuck around for the medal ceremony. In the still bright, early evening light, and framed by a backdrop of Rio’s iconic peaks, the Olympic Course, once looked upon so skeptically, felt like a true place of golf, one that now has a real place in history.
“This all turned out better than could have been expected,” said Ty Votaw, the PGA Tour’s chief marketing officer and vice president of the International Golf Federation, who in his position as point man for golf in Rio had to bear the weight of all the dissent but still found a way to get it done. “There were so many unknowns, but offsetting that were all the heroes who made sure it all worked. The green-keeping staff. The caddies who helped facilitate so many things. And the players, who told the Olympic story to the public and who will tell it to their peers.”
A few months back, Votaw was trying to put an optimistic spin on all the chaos. “Bottom line,” he said, “when the players get there, at some point they are going to feel goose bumps and the hair rising on the back of their neck, and they are going to know they are at the very pinnacle of sport, and they are going to realize ‘This is what I can do in our sport.’ And I believe they are going to go back home and say, it was worth it.”
Votaw turned out to be right, and he’s quietly confident that when the IOC meets in September 2017 to decide which events will be included in the 2024 Summer Games, golf will get the votes that will, in essence, give it a permanent place in the Olympics. And the players who chose not to come to Rio, if not wrong in their decisions, could not have watched the golf event without some pangs of regret.
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