USA Golf officials and the four Americans expected to qualify for the Rio Games yesterday had a "'productive' meeting" in the wake of several high profile players announcing they will skip the Olympics due to Zika virus concerns, according to Will Gray of GOLFCHANNEL.com. Bubba Watson, Jordan Spieth, Rickie Fowler and Dustin Johnson all "attended the meeting" at Firestone Country Club in Akron ahead of this week's WGC-Bridgestone Invitational. Johnson said the meeting "was good" and "cleared up a lot of things." He added he was still "waiting to hear back on a couple things that all four of us had a concern about, but we’ll have some answers early next week.” World No. 1 Jason Day and Shane Lowry both cited Zika as their "main reason for withdrawing from the competition." But Johnson indicated that the issues raised by the American players "focused on other areas." Johnson: "Just security concerns. I think they’ve got it covered pretty well. We talked very, very briefly about Zika, but it was mostly all security concerns." A source who attended the meeting described it as "great." The source added that USA Golf officials are "expected to touch base with the players early next week with updated information" (GOLFCHANNEL.com, 6/29).
AMATEUR HOUR? Australian Adam Scott, the first player to pull out of the Games, believes some of the blame "lies with the competition's structure." Scott said of the format, "Just having another 72-hole golf tournament with a weaker-than-most field doesn’t really pique my interest.” Scott believes that the qualification system "is unsatisfying," and that the tournament's scheduling "needs serious overhaul as it relates to golf's season." GOLF DIGEST's Joel Beall noted Scott "did have one solution: make Olympic golf about amateurs" (GOLFDIGEST.com, 6/29). Scott added, "I’ve always believed that having the amateurs in from the start would have been the best way for it to go in the Olympics. I’d make an argument that having the amateurs in the Olympics would grow the game the most, not us.” GOLFWEEK's Adam Schupak wrote Scott "is right." An Olympic Gold Medal "would’ve been the pinnacle of amateur golf, something to which to aspire." Golf "deserves a place in the Olympics, but the sport should take a page out of soccer’s playbook, which allows only under-23s to play in the Olympics" (GOLFWEEK.com, 6/29). In San Diego, Tod Leonard writes Olympic golf "could be just as appealing with amateurs who have fresh stories to tell and a fire in their gut for gold" (SAN DIEGO UNION-TRIBUNE, 6/30).
BLEAK FUTURE? USA TODAY's Christine Brennan writes Zika is "an excuse that is helping to expose the tremendous mistake" the IOC "made seven years ago by bringing back golf to the Olympics." Brennan: "Why aren’t the women bailing like the men? Because the Olympics is a much bigger deal to them." The "embarrassing drumbeat of withdrawals by some of the best male golfers in the world should be a lesson for the IOC." If the organization "has any sense at all ... it should send golf right back out of the Olympics." Golf "doesn't need the Olympics, and vice versa" (USA TODAY, 6/30). SPORTING NEWS' Mike DeCourcy wrote the "simple truth is that a vast number of top male golfers not only don’t want to be in Rio, they don’t want to be in the Olympics." DeCourcy: "So don’t make it an option. Keep the Games reserved to those who are honored to be called Olympians" (SPORTINGNEWS.com, 6/29).
