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In 2016, there were plenty of top golfers in the West who would not have it that an Olympic gold medal was up there with a major title. Some are still arguing the case today, though maybe not with quite the same conviction. Justin Rose saw to that.
When Rose won the Olympic gold medal in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, some truly great players, including Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy, noted his accomplishment and wanted a gold medal for themselves. (Woods, with his accident, has missed his chance this time, but McIlroy has said he intends to represent Ireland in Japan this summer.)
Metaphorically at least, Rose’s medal has grown in stature. Indeed, not long after Rio he was saying it meant more to him than his 2013 US Open victory at Merion: “Since winning, I’ve realised just how important it is. I’ve been asked to take it with me to a lot of tournaments … I don’t hear about the US Open now, just the gold medal.”
Jamie Spence, who captained the British side in Rio, spoke out recently about what he felt was a lack of interest on the part of the British Golf Association four years ago. (The BGA was founded for the Olympics and is funded equally by the Scottish, English and Welsh amateur bodies along with the British PGA.) Spence cited how the Olympic golf bags, when they arrived at his door, did not have the players’ names on them. He also struggled to get golfers upgraded from economy class for the long-haul flights.
Though Nigel Edwards, England Golf’s performance director and the British golf leader for Japan, is not convinced there is any lack of interest from the BGA. He gives the impression that everyone is more absorbed this time around thanks to Rose’s efforts.
“I’m getting asked more and more player questions about the Olympics and that has to be a good sign,” Edwards said. “Like me, I think the players are wide-eyed when they hear Justin being announced on a first tee as the Olympic gold medalist. He’s been a brilliant ambassador for all of us in the UK.”
Just back from the Walker Cup, Edwards believes there’s a learning process attached to every international outing. At Seminole Golf Club, he felt Great Britain & Ireland picked up on how to handle Walker Cups in America: “I hope the R&A will help our preparations when we next play in the States because I think we’ve found the right formula. We did well to take the Americans as close as we did, especially when you consider how, apart from the five players we have at American colleges, the rest of our lads had only been playing spasmodically. There’s no reason why we can’t win over there.”
"I think the players are wide-eyed when they hear Justin (Rose) being announced on a first tee as the Olympic gold medalist."
Nigel Edwards, England Golf
Regarding the Olympics, Edwards is currently doing everything he can to enable his players “to do a Justin” and stay in a property closer to the course than the 1½-hour journey from this year’s Olympic Village. Justin was so hell-bent on winning in Rio that he forked out £100,000 to stay in the kind of convenient property he would rent for a major, and did not get involved in the “team GB thing” during the golf competition. Silver medalist Henrik Stenson did the same, as did Inbee Park and Lydia Ko, respective gold and silver medalists in the women’s tournament in Brazil.
“For the moment it’s all in the hands of the Japanese government,” Edwards says. “It’s possible we could have a bubble of our own elsewhere but we just don’t know. Because of it, I haven’t been able to tell the players one thing or the other.”
All Edwards can say during these still-uncertain times is he feels honoured to have been given the role of “golf leader” and that, from what he is hearing, the Games are going ahead: “We don’t have oodles of money but we’ll be doing the best that we can – and, yes, there will be names on the golf bags.”
As things stand, those names would be Tyrrell Hatton, Matt Fitzpatrick, Mel Reid and Charley Hull or England. With big tournaments ahead, Paul Casey is giving chase on the men’s side, while Georgia Hall is not out of the running on the women’s front.
With the build-up to the Games picking up momentum, what tends to get forgotten is how Olympic funding is enabling the game to take off everywhere, with “everywhere” including countries such as Bulgaria and Slovenia with little or no tradition of golf. It is, of course, precisely what the R&A and USGA want in their efforts to grow the game globally.
It almost goes without saying that the ongoing implications for golf around the world could be huge. Olympic doubters such as Dustin Johnson and Adam Scott, who each sat out Brazil and have expressed no desire to travel to Japan, might well say that that is not going to bother them overmuch, but what about generations to come?
Even before golf was reinstated in the Games, the South Korean women were showing us a thing or two. To give some statistics, America won 31 majors to South Korea’s two in the 1990s. Since 2010, South Korea has won 23 to America’s 11.
Rather more pertinent is what is happening in China. A year or so ago, I asked Shanshan Feng how much her 2012 LPGA Championship victory had raised her profile in her homeland. Her reply hinted at her performance in the Rio Olympics being held in higher regard than her LPGA achievements.
“It was a combination of things, really,” she decided. She then led off with a proud mention of her bronze medal in Rio (yes, a third-place medal) before adding her former No. 1 ranking and her LPGA Championship win: “All over the world people have started to realise that it is not just the Americans, the Koreans, the English and the Australians who can be good at golf.”
Top: Justin Rose got a hero's welcome at London's Heathrow Airport in 2016 when he brought home the gold medal from the Rio de Janeiro Olympics.
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