How Zika virus lets golfers off hook for wanting to skip Rio Olympics

[Eugene]

Source: ESPN

How Zika virus lets golfers off hook for wanting to skip Rio Olympics

Jason Sobel
ESPN Senior Writer
3:49 PM EDT

Here's where the problem with reintroducing golf into the Olympic Games started: The powers that be who saw the benefits of the sport's return after 112 years away -- whether those benefits were innocently growing the game globally or self-indulgently attempting win a financial infusion for the industry -- informally surveyed the game's elite players about which format would best suit their tastes.

Not the most creative bunch, the players answered that they'd like a 72-hole stroke-play format that sounds exactly like almost every other tournament on the schedule. Once it was approved by the IOC, there was no going back.

But letting players pick such a common format meant that Olympic golf instantly felt less special than it should have. It felt like just another "important" tourney in a summer swimming with them, only this one would be contested at a brand-new, faraway venue with no money at stake. Go ahead and try to get your favorite multimillionaire to do a week's worth of pro bono work and see how that goes over.

Little by little, the players publicly recited the right words while privately questioning their own motives. Rickie Fowler might have said it best last year when asked about his Olympic goals: "It would be a dream come true (that) I haven't ever dreamed of."

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Read more: http://espn.go.com/golf/story/_/id/16590605/how-zika-virus-lets-golfers-hook-wanting-skip-rio-olympics

[KamaAina]

1. A series of mini-Ryder Cups would have been smashing.