{"id":212635,"date":"2021-03-27T16:37:46","date_gmt":"2021-03-27T13:37:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/golf-shouldve-never-been-reinstated-as-a-summer-olympic-sport\/"},"modified":"2021-03-27T16:37:46","modified_gmt":"2021-03-27T13:37:46","slug":"golf-shouldve-never-been-reinstated-as-a-summer-olympic-sport","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/golf-shouldve-never-been-reinstated-as-a-summer-olympic-sport\/","title":{"rendered":"#Golf should’ve never been reinstated as a Summer Olympic sport"},"content":{"rendered":"

“#Golf should’ve never been reinstated as a Summer Olympic sport<\/strong>”<\/p>\n

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Earlier this month, the world\u2019s number one golfer, Dustin Johnson, announced that he wouldn\u2019t be representing the United States at the Olympic Game<\/a>s in Tokyo, Japan, this summer.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Again.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a lot of travel<\/a>ing at a time where it\u2019s important for me to feel like I\u2019m focused playing on the PGA Tour,\u201d said the man who, along with Patrick Reed, Brooks Koepka and Phil Mickelson, made a 15,000-mile round trip to Saudi Arabia last year just to bank a reported seven-figure app<\/a>earance fee in the Saudi International tournament.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He\u2019s a busy man, clearly, but then golfers are always busy, especially when it comes to the Olympic Games.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Before its return to the Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 2016, the last time golf had featured at the Olympics was in St. Louis, Miss., in 1904.\u00a0<\/p>\n

That\u2019s 112 years of nobody giving a damn; not sports fans, not the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and certainly not the golfers themselves.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Did anybody miss it? Really?\u00a0<\/p>\n

Sixty top golfers were invited to play in Rio but 21 of the world\u2019s best decided not to travel, many citing the threat of the Zika virus as a reason, or an excuse, not to go. While England\u2019s Justin Rose took the gold, many stayed home, including the four highest ranked players: Jason Day, Dustin Johnson, Jordan Spieth and Rory McIlroy.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Dustin
Dustin Johnson recently said he will be sitting out the Tokyo Olympics this summer \u2014 and who can blame him?<\/figcaption>
Getty Images<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

While McIlroy played the Zika card for his absence, the Northern Irishman also remarked that he wouldn\u2019t even watch Olympic golf on TV, preferring to tune in to \u201ctrack and field, swimming, diving .\u2009.\u2009. the stuff that matters.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

At least Australia\u2019s Adam Scott, another absentee, was honest, saying the Olympics was \u201cnothing I\u2019ve ever aspired to do and I don\u2019t think I ever will.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

And if the golfers don\u2019t care, why should we?\u00a0<\/p>\n

Quite why golf came back is anyone\u2019s guess. If it was to add a bit of sporting stardust to the Games then it missed the mark spectacularly. If it was to \u201cgrow the game\u201d in those parts of the world untouched by its wonder then it failed again.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In 2009, when the IOC announced it was reinstating golf to its roster, golf legend Tom Watson feared that it might \u201cdilute\u201d the game\u2019s four major tournaments (the Masters, PGA Championship, US Open and British Open).\u00a0<\/p>\n

He needn\u2019t have worried.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Why? Because there\u2019s no money on offer in the Olympics \u2014 and that puts it way down the list of most golfers\u2019 priorities.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In truth, golf has about as much place in the Olympic Games as competitive eating and, having seen the golf at the 2016 Games, I know which I\u2019d rather watch.\u00a0<\/p>\n

For many sports (and, let\u2019s face it, you would be hard pushed to call golf a \u201csport\u201d anyway), the Olympics represents the pinnacle of athletic achievement, an event where competitors pit themselves against the very best exponents in the world.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Jason
Jason Day, Jordan Spieth and Rory McIlroy would all rather bring home the green than the gold.<\/figcaption>
Getty Images (3)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

But golf doesn\u2019t need the Olympics, not like track and field or swimming do. In golf, the world\u2019s best play each other all the time; in the majors, in the World Golf Championship events and then pretty much every week on tour. In that respect, Olympic soccer and tennis can make way for events that would benefit from being in the Olympics, like squash or lacrosse. And as for rugby \u2014 really?\u00a0<\/p>\n

Of course, if the IOC wanted to, it could simply make golf revert to the original ethos of the Games by making the event strictly for amateur players, giving those up-and-coming players that rarest of opportunities to represent their country in the Olympics.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Failing that, they could look at their famous Olympic motto \u2014 \u201cFaster, Higher, Stronger\u201d \u2014 and ask whether golf really ticks any of those boxes.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Clearly, it doesn\u2019t.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In fact, competitive eating ticks more.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Gavin News<\/a>ham is the co-founder of Golf Punk magazine and has also written for Golf Monthly and Golf World.\u00a0<\/em>\n <\/div>\n

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Source<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“#Golf should’ve never been reinstated as a Summer Olympic sport” Earlier this month, the world\u2019s number one golfer, Dustin Johnson, announced that he wouldn\u2019t be representing the United States at the Olympic Games in Tokyo, Japan, this summer.\u00a0 Again.\u00a0 \u201cIt\u2019s a lot of traveling at a time where it\u2019s important for me to feel like…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":212636,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2021\/03\/justin-rose.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&w=1200","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[70897],"tags":[70888,99687,70881,70889,99747],"class_list":["post-212635","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-2020-olympics","tag-3-27-21","tag-golf","tag-olympics","tag-summer-olympics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212635","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=212635"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212635\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/212636"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=212635"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=212635"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=212635"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}