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Golf’s missed chance to ring changes in Rio

Gary Stokes from Leeds-based golf tech specialists Whole In One Golf rues the sport’s missed chance in Rio

Sports fans everywhere are rejoicing. We’re knee deep into the Olympics and a time when we’re all excited about fencing and have studiously learned the intricacies of judging in the diving.

So how many of us will have sat through all four days of the mens’ or womens’ golf competition? Well, not Rory McIlroy for one. He’s not there and has no interest in Olympic golf.

He’ll watch the diving and the athletics. ‘The Olympic sports that matter,’ as he pointed out a few weeks ago. That comment from the former world number one golfer and one of the young pin up boys of the sport must have been a dagger through the heart of those within the game who saw being welcomed into the Olympic movement as a massive opportunity. Except nobody within golf seems quite sure what that opportunity is…or was supposed to be.

Golf as a sport has issues. Some say it needs to find its own ‘Twenty20’ variant to bring the new generation into the game and develop them into appreciating and loving the full game. Others say it just needs to keep itself up-to-date with modern demands (which, incidentally, is what we’re trying to achieve at Whole in One Golf).

As wonderful and in-depth The British Open coverage was for us golf nuts on Sky Sports, major golf competitions are now no longer on terrestrial TV, save for short highlights programmes. It means fewer people were able to stumble across that amazing final day duel between Henrik Stenson and Phil Mickelson at The Open. It deserved an audience many millions more than the sums watching on satellite TV.

So the Olympics presented the sole opportunity for any occasional or accidental armchair sports fans to get hooked. But all of the world’s top four golfers are missing. Stars and major winners like Australia’s Jason Day, US hotshot Jordan Speith and Ireland’s McIlroy wont be there. They’ve cited the Zika virus as a reason to stay away. McIlroy, to his credit, has been one of the few to openly state that his reasons are that the thought of a golfing gold medal simply isn’t a priority for him.

Golf and the Olympics have been uneasy bedfellows. It’s been something of a PR disaster as golfer after golfer has withdrawn. Carrying a putter somehow makes you far more susceptible to the virus, it would seem, than clearing the high jump or diving into a pool.

For the reasons outlined at the very top, you do feel that golf will still receive its fair share of attention from the Olympic armchair fan. Us sports fans don’t do it to spot the celebrity – how many of us really knew who Jack Laugher was until a few days ago – and perhaps this was the chance for golf to create new stars. Making it an amateur or under 23 tournament may have been the springboard for the game to unearth the next Tiger Woods.

Instead, it looks like the game will continue to gaze forlornly at its navel while others continue their push to modernise and make relevant the game they love.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by GluePR .