The Irish Golf Club Gazette: Olympics

Showing posts with label Olympics. Show all posts

7/26/2016

Harrington Happy About Rio

Padraig Harrington is thrilled to be going and dreams of gold.

“I’m really looking forward to Rio. My whole family are going,” the 44-year-old Irishman said after a long session on the practice putting green on a sizzling hot and stormy Baltusrol, where the PGA Championship begins on Thursday.

“We’re busy getting our tickets organized for the second week that we’re there. It’s a big deal for us.”

Harrington, winner of the 2008 PGA Championship and two British Open titles (2007, 2008), accepted the honor of playing for Ireland after the withdrawals of four-times major champion Rory McIlroy and Graeme McDowell citing concerns over the Zika virus.

Later Shane Lowery also withdrew over Zika worries, opening the door for 297th-ranked Seamus Power to join Harrington in the 60-man Rio field as golf returns to the Olympic programme after an absence of 112 years.

World number one Jason Day of Australia, the defending PGA champion, and Americans Dustin Johnson and Jordan Spieth, ranked second and third, respectively, also bowed out from Rio consideration due to health concerns.

The mosquito-borne Zika virus, which the World Health Organization says is spreading rapidly in the Americas, can cause crippling defects in babies and has been linked to the neurological disorder Guillain-Barre in adults.

“I’m going down there to try and win. No doubt about it, I believe I can win,” said Harrington, who has slipped to 150th in the world rankings.

Harrington, like others who played at the Open at Royal Troon, are returning for the season’s final major with just one tournament week in between them in a tour season condensed to make room for the Olympic tournament.

Some players, including world number eight Adam Scott of Australia and South Africa’s world number 15 Louis Oosthuizen, said they opted out of the Rio Games for scheduling reasons.

Harrington said he had planned to play two majors and the Olympics this summer. “I wanted to do my preparation for all three and if I played well in one of those three would have a good chance of winning,” he said.

“It didn’t happen at the (British) Open. I’ve won three majors and I’m happy to take either,” he said about this week’s PGA or next month’s Summer Olympics.

“I could understand if you haven’t won a major, making that more of a priority. But I think an Olympic gold would add a lot to my career.”

4/25/2013

Harrington Happy for Two Mac's

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Padraig Harrington has welcomed the news that Rory McIlroy may have no choice but to represent Ireland at the 2016 Olympics but he concedes it could prevent him from competing in Rio de Janeiro.

Both Rory McIlroy and Graeme McDowell face having to make a tough choice between representing Ireland or Great Britain in Brazil, but chief executive of the Royal & Ancient Peter Dawson has revealed that the decision may be taken out of their hands.

As both players have represented Ireland in the World Cup of Golf they may have no other choice than to play for Ireland at the 2016 games due to an existing Olympic regulation.

Harrington believes it would be a good thing to have the decision taken away from the players, but it could work against the Dubliner because of the qualification system for the Games.

“The way I look at it, this is a sensible move and good for the game of gold,” Harrington is quoted as saying in the Irish Independent. “If I was the ruling body, I’d make the same decision.

“It’s the right move to make but maybe not in my best interests.”

Only the world’s top 15 are guaranteed a place in the 60-man field with the remaining places going to players from countries that do not already have two qualified.

Harrington knows he will have to work hard to improve his current ranking of 53 but he is determined to ensure he is in with a shout of representing Ireland.

“The way things stand at the moment, I’d not get in the team. I’m determined not to let anybody else decide my fate, so I want to be in the top 15 in 2016 and again in 2020. That’s the goal.”

The R&A are expected to hold talks with the International Olympic Committee in the coming months to discuss several matters relating to golf’s return to the Olympic stage.

12/04/2012

Watson No Fan of OIympic Golf

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Eight-time major winner Tom Watson believes that golf should not have been reinstated as an Olympic sport.

Golf will form part of the Games at the next Olympics in Rio in 2016, but Watson feels it has no place at an event which he feels is still meant to celebrate the ideal of amateur sport.

Indeed, the American claims that the opportunity to challenge for Olympic gold will only serve to devalue the four major championships.

"I don't want to pour cold water on it but I don't think it should be in the Olympic Games," Watson told reporters ahead of this week's Australian Open in Sydney. "I still think of Olympics as track and field and not golf, to be honest with you.

"We have our most important championships (the four major championships). You have golf in the Olympics, you have diluted the importance, in a sense, of the four major championships.

Mixed emotions

"I probably had a pie in the sky way of looking at the Olympics as being clean and pure.

"I like to trust people and trust they are doing things for the right reasons. When the professionals go to the Olympics, they go for the wrong reasons."

Watson went on to reveal that he did back the recent move to outlaw the anchored putting stroke, but added he did so with "mixed emotions".

"My son Michael, with a conventional putting stroke, he couldn't make it from two feet, but he went to a belly putter and he makes everything," Watson explained. "The game is fun for him now, so there lays the danger. Do we take the ability for people to have fun away?"

But he added: "I thought Ernie Els said it perfectly after he won the Open Championship. He was asked 'why did you go with the long putter Ernie?' And he said 'I'm cheating like the rest of them are'."

10/26/2012

G-MAC Looks for Olympic Decision

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Graeme McDowell wants some help in deciding which country he should represent at the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro.

The golfer from Northern Ireland said Thursday he would like some guidance on whether he and top-ranked Rory McIlroy should play for Britain or Ireland when golf returns to the Olympics for the first time since 1924.

“Obviously, Rory’s come under a lot of scrutiny in the last couple of months for kind of saying he might play for Great Britain,” McDowell said. “We’re kind of in a unique scenario in Northern Ireland in that we have one foot on each team. I think it’s going to be a lot easier if someone makes the decision for us.

“The Olympic committee should step in and say that ‘You guys are either playing for Ireland or you’re playing for Great Britain.’”

Northern Ireland is part of the United Kingdom, putting the pair in position to either play for Britain or Ireland. On the regular golf tours, Northern Ireland stands on its own alongside Ireland and the other three British nations — England, Scotland and Wales.

Last month, McIlroy said he had not made a decision on which country to represent.

The president of the Irish Olympic Committee, Pat Hickey, has denied reports that he said McIlroy could carry the Irish flag in the opening ceremony in Rio if he competed for that country.

At the BMW Masters, McDowell said he would be prepared to represent either Britain or Ireland.

“I always say that I come from a mixed religion family,” McDowell said. “My mum’s Catholic and my dad is Protestant. And my mum would probably like me to play for Ireland, and my dad might like me to play for Britain.

“But then I always kind of sit on the fence because that’s exactly the only place I can sit. Let’s say that I’d play for whatever team we have come 2016.”