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One of these years, perhaps 2024 in Paris, we will find out exactly where playing for an Olympic gold medal falls on the priority list for the best male players in the world.
It’s still an open-ended question.
For Justin Rose, the 2016 gold medal winner, it seemed bigger than a dream come true.
For others, the Games remained a distant curiosity.
Between the Zika virus, a trip to Rio de Janeiro and the newness of golf in the Games, the 2016 experience had a cool vibe once it got started but an element of trepidation simmered beneath what ultimately felt like a triumph of sorts.
It has happened again this year with a collection of prominent players – Dustin Johnson, Sergio García, Adam Scott, Louis Oosthuizen and others – taking a pass on playing in the Olympics. The field was depleted further when both Jon Rahm and Bryson DeChambeau – the No. 1 and No. 6 players in the world, respectively, and most recent U.S. Open champions – tested positive for COVID-19 before traveling to Japan.
Those who are there, from Patrick Reed (a last-minute for DeChambeau) to Rory McIlroy to Ondrej Lieser of the Czech Republic, won’t get the full Olympics experience because of the pandemic that hasn’t yet been conquered. It will therefore feel more like an ultra-long-distance work trip than the athletic celebration the Olympics should be.
They will play in relative solitude, much like they did last summer when the pandemic was still new to the world, and they will play in a tight corner of the calendar carved out of the busiest time in their work schedules.
“I am doing it because I think it is the right thing to do, and I missed it last time,” McIlroy told reporters after the Open Championship. “For golf to be an Olympic sport you need your best players there, and I want to represent the game of golf more than anything else.
“I don’t know if there’s much to look forward to. It’s obviously going to be a very different environment. Looking forward to getting another week’s golf in and trying to get my game in shape. As I said, there’s not much else to do there.”
Not exactly a ringing endorsement.
Unlike the women’s side of the game, where it seems playing in the Olympics is universally embraced, some men have made it their mission to earn a spot in the Games while others have appeared indifferent. Assuming golf remains in the Olympics (and given the challenges in 2016 and again this year it would be unwise to give it the boot again now), my guess is qualifying to play will remain a goal of many but not at the top of their private priority list.
For Rose, the gold medal he won five years ago in Rio helped define an already exemplary career. He reveled in the achievement as did Henrik Stenson and Matt Kuchar, who took silver and bronze, respectively. Others, such as Rickie Fowler, so loved the experience, they came home with tattoos of the Olympic rings.
It was a different kind of competitive golf, truly a celebration that may have been as much about golf being part of the Games as it was about what actually happened.
It will be the same for whoever wins gold this week outside Tokyo.
Canadian pro Mackenzie Hughes, whose summer has been highlighted by playing in the final group on Sunday at the U.S. Open at Torrey Pines and finishing T8 at the Open Championship, is in Japan this week after getting a few days of down time between England and Tokyo.
He elected to stay home in Charlotte, North Carolina, resting for a few days rather than travel early to be part of the opening ceremonies in part because these Games don’t offer the full Olympic experience. They do, however, offer a gold medal and that’s enough for Hughes, who will represent his home country along with Corey Connors.
“It wasn’t something on my radar a few years ago but when they played in Rio in ’16, I was really jealous of the guys who were going there to play,” said Hughes.
“I was really keen on making the team. It’s not something I thought about 24/7 the last year and a half but it was a big goal of mine.”
If Hughes were to win a medal, it would change his place in the game and that’s the way it would be for most of the 60 players teeing it up in Japan.
Were McIlroy or Justin Thomas, for example, to win the gold medal, would it change the narrative when they arrive at the Masters next April, each trying to win another major championship after several years without one?
It wouldn’t change the discussion much, if at all, though it would own a unique place in their résumés. This chance didn’t exist a decade ago and if it’s still not fully entrenched in the game’s fabric, these next two weeks offer an opportunity to remind us of what the Olympic experience can add to golf.
“I’m sure a lot of guys that missed Rio and saw what winning did for Justin Rose, they’d be lying if they said they didn’t have some regrets,” Hughes said.
“I don’t want to have those regrets. I said, ‘There’s no way I’m not doing this.’ ”
Top: Opening ceremony of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games
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