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BY RON GREEN JR.
On the outside of Rickie Fowler’s right forearm is a tattoo of the Olympic Games logo, the five interlocking rings among the most instantly recognizable markings in sports.
Fowler and Olympic diver Sam Dorman went together to get their tattoos and it is a permanent reminder of Fowler’s Olympic experience nearly four years ago when golf returned to the games in Rio de Janeiro.
“It was such a great experience,” Fowler said. “I loved being part of the opening ceremony. I only wish I had stayed for the closing ceremony.”
When Fowler joined three other Americans who qualified – Matt Kuchar, Patrick Reed and Bubba Watson – they were playing golf for their country but, along with the 56 other players who qualified, they transformed golf’s return to the Olympics after more than a century on the outside.
They turned the question of whether the game’s top players would embrace golf in the Olympics into a bucket-list item for virtually every elite player – including Tiger Woods, who has made no secret that playing for the United States in the Tokyo games starting in late July is among his goals for 2020.
Woods wasn’t healthy enough to challenge for a spot in the 2016 Olympics but the 44-year-old is healthy again and driven to be one of the (at most) four Americans competing this time around at Kasumigaseki Country Club.
Qualifying for the Olympics is based on the world ranking. The two highest-ranked players in the top 60 may represent their country. Should a country have more than two players ranked in the top 15 when qualifying ends June 22, it can send up to four players, as the U.S. did four years ago.
Entering last week’s Sentry Tournament of Champions, Brooks Koepka (No. 1), Justin Thomas (No. 4), Dustin Johnson (No. 5) and Woods (No. 6) occupied the four potential U.S. spots with Patrick Cantlay (No. 7) just behind.
The ranking will shuffle throughout the next six months and while Woods is likely to stick to a familiar schedule – he is expected to make his 2020 debut at the Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines in a little more than two weeks – his battle for one of the four potential spots will be an intriguing subplot to the unfolding season.
This isn’t like 2016 when concerns over the Zika virus and security issues in Rio led many top players, including Rory McIlroy, Jordan Spieth and Johnson, to bypass the games. Players want to be part of these Olympics.
“It’s huge. I really want to be on that team,” Thomas said. “It kind of speaks for itself. I want to take care of my business to make sure I’m there.
“When you look at the world rankings it changes every week. It’s so dense. It’s going to be nuts.”
During his appearance at the PGA Tour’s Zozo Championship in Japan last fall, McIlroy confirmed that he plans to compete for Ireland in the Tokyo games. For Woods, who has accomplished virtually everything else in his career, this is likely his last chance to play for a gold medal. His only firsthand experience with the Olympics came as a kid in 1984 when he and his father, Earl, attended the archery competition not far from their home outside Los Angeles.
“So I got a chance to experience the Olympics at an early age and didn’t really understand it,” Woods said last fall.
“But over the years, having friends compete in the Olympics, seeing golf be part of the Olympics, it would be an honor to represent my country in an Olympic Games.”
As with new PGA Tour stops, word of mouth can make or break an event. It was that way with golf’s return to the Olympics until the world watched Justin Rose, Henrik Stenson and Kuchar stand on the podium to accept their medals after a compelling competition on the new Gil Hanse-designed course in Rio.
What had perhaps felt conceptual in the run-up had turned real, the experience everlasting.
“No one knew what the Olympics meant. I certainly didn’t. I was just really proud to represent my country,” said Rose, the 2016 gold medalist for Great Britain.
“My mentality was to go and play in the Olympic Games and call myself an Olympian. One day my grandchildren might think that’s cool.
“It wasn’t something I aspired to as a child. I wanted to win majors and Ryder Cups and things like that. But it’s grown into something much bigger than I had hoped.
“The moment standing up there on the podium getting my gold medal was an out-of-body and surreal experience. Being announced on the first tee for four straight years as the Olympic champion, I think it’s caught the attention of all the lads.”
Rose carried the gold medal with him for a month after he won it, showing it off to people who asked. Hardly a day goes by still, Rose said, when someone at a tournament site doesn’t mention the medal to him.
“ ... I got a chance to experience the Olympics at an early age and didn’t really understand it. But over the years, having friends compete in the Olympics, seeing golf be part of the Olympics, it would be an honor to represent my country in an Olympic Games.”
Tiger Woods
Even as Rose worked through his 2019 schedule, he had his eyes on 2020, knowing that in addition to the four major championships, there is a Ryder Cup and the Olympics to build into the to-do list. Like the Ryder Cup, winning an Olympic medal is not like anything else.
“I put it in its own special column. I can’t compare it to a major,” Rose said.
“If you ask me what would I rather win next year, I’d probably say I’d like to be a multiple major champion. To add that tagline would be very important to me but the Olympics is right there with my goals. When I set my goals for 2020, defending the Olympics is at the top of my priority list along with the major championships.”
Had Spieth not decided against playing in the Olympics four years ago, Kuchar would not have been in Rio. Instead, he wound up winning the bronze medal, accomplishing a career goal in the process.
“It’s so cool to reflect on the saying of ‘once an Olympian, always an Olympian,’ ” Kuchar said. “To think of the gravity of the Olympics and what they mean and to have been a part of one, it’s just awesome.
“Going there, there were question marks about the course, about the field, about all these things. You get in the heat of battle and you come down to the final round with a chance to medal, it’s just unbelievable the rush of emotion that goes through your body. To think you’re representing your country and you’re doing something that will stay in the record books forever.
“It’s very cool.”