The Best Laid Plans…

 Posted on: July 12 2016

When it was announced that golf would return to the Olympics for the 2016 games, just about everyone was excited about the possibility of showing off the game to a worldwide audience. Coming with its own built-in star power in the form of Tiger Woods, Rory McIlroy and the like, golf seemed to be a sure-fire hit in ticket sales and TV viewership.

And then the Zika virus came along.

Although that might not be the real reason that many of the sport’s stars are not competing for their countries this summer, Zika and the potentially devastating effect it can have on the unborn have been enough to steer many of golf’s top names from heading to Brazil.

The latest to bow out? Jordan Spieth, who told International Golf Federation officials this week, just before a news conference, that he would not be playing next month in Brazil.

Spieth joins Jason Day, Dustin Johnson and McIlroy in deciding to skip the Games, mostly due to concerns about the Zika virus that is prevalent in Rio de Janeiro. (Tiger is already out as he recovers from back surgery) That means the top four players in the world will be absent from the 60-player field, which was to be finalized following Sunday's update to the Official World Golf Ranking.

Adam Scott, Louis Oosthuizen, Charl Schwartzel, Graeme McDowell and Vijay Singh are other major championship winners and international stars who are not going.

Among other concerns is the schedule, with men’s Olympic golf starting just four weeks from Thursday, with another major championship, the PGA, coming up in just two weeks. The PGA Tour also scheduled an event, the John Deere Classic -- where Spieth is the defending champion -- for the same week as the Olympic event.

The following week is the Wyndham Championship, the last event of the regular season, followed by the FedEx Cup playoff events. For Americans and Europeans, there is also a Ryder Cup.

And there’s the Olympics itself. Very similar to tennis’ situation, a gold medal at the Olympics would be nice to win in golf, but there’s more money to be made and more prestige to be had in winning a major championship on four. It’s very different from, say, track and field or gymnastics, where athletes prepare for this one moment that comes along every four years and an Olympic medal is your highest achievement.

Now, we could write a whole other blog about the potential problems the Rio Olympics had, are having and could have in the next month. The moral is, when you plan an event, you never know what might happen. You, as an event planner or rights holder, will be judged by how you handle it. We’ll see how Rio will be judged in the next few weeks.

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