As seen by attendance, the Olympics have progressed significantly in the 12 years since golf returned to the program.

This year, very few people are staying at home.

Bernd Wiesberger was one of two qualified players who chose not to play, which was unusual.

Wiesberger was Austria’s third-ranked player until tying for second place in the European Open, where he unexpectedly passed Matthias Schwab. He then withdrew almost quickly, which was not surprising given that Wiesberger previously withdrew from the Tokyo Games.

Cristobal Del Solar of Chile also withdrew, citing the fact that he is on the verge of receiving his first PGA Tour card and did not want to miss time on the Korn Ferry Tour.

The remaining qualified players have all confirmed their participation in Paris.

Adam Scott opposed golf in the Olympics from the outset and withdrew again. Brooks Koepka and Tyrrell Hatton also withdrew, though neither was eligible.

This contrasts sharply with the Rio Olympics, where the top four players in the world—Dustin Johnson, Rory McIlroy, Jordan Spieth, and Jason Day—were among the dozen or so who stayed home.

This was mainly due to concerns about the Zika virus. McIlroy later stated that he despised the Olympics for making him choose between Ireland and Britain, but he eventually changed his mind and played for Ireland in Tokyo.

Men’s Golf Will Have A Good Attendance Record At The Paris Olympics

The Tokyo Games, which were postponed a year to 2021, had no fans due to the pandemic and daily COVID-19 exams. Eleven players, including Johnson, Sergio Garcia, Matt Fitzpatrick, Louis Oosthuizen, Francesco Molinari, and Camilo Villegas, elected not to play.

Villegas, Fitzpatrick, and Emiliano Grillo, three players who elected not to participate in Tokyo, will travel to Paris. The others were ineligible.

Jon Rahm and Bryson DeChambeau were scheduled to play in Tokyo until they tested positive for COVID-19 and were forced to withdraw. Rahm will be in Paris, and DeChambeau is the second alternate.

But it’s a welcome difference that no one is discussing who isn’t going to the Olympics, at least among the males. It was never an issue for the women, who have been out in full force since the beginning.

The men’s Olympic field will have eight of the top ten players and thirteen of the top 25. Countries are allocated two players — a maximum of four if all are in the top 15 — ensuring that every eligible player attends Le Golf National.

Open and close?
Cam Davis of Australia won the Rocket Mortgage Classic, moving up to No. 38 in the global rankings. That may be needed to qualify him for the British Open.

Davis is almost set to be the highest-ranked player in the Official World Golf Ranking next week, which the R&A indicated it will use as a reserve list. Thomas Detry of Belgium is next on the OWGR, at No. 50 among those not previously exempt.

The question is whether a reserve list is necessary.

As of Tuesday, the field for the British Open was 132 participants (assuming Todd Hamilton does not compete since he has not since 2018). Two spots are available at the John Deere Classic, five for the top 20 players in the Race to Dubai following this week, and three for the Scottish Open.

Following Tuesday’s 36-hole qualifying round, 16 additional slots were added to the field. That brings the field to 158 players (or 159) when it should be 156. A reserve list or room for Davis may be unnecessary.

According to the R&A, two to three players often withdraw for various reasons, bringing the field back to 156. However, the Open will go with that number if it arrives at 158 (or 159).

Having a field of more than 156 players in the United Kingdom is not an issue because it only grows dark around 10 p.m. in the summer. The last time the field topped 156 participants was in 1995 when there were 159 at St. Andrews.

Davis’ sole path to Royal Troon could be to win one of the two spots available at the Scottish Open next week.

The wonderful life of Richard Bland
Richard Bland has won two of golf’s most prestigious senior majors, the U.S. Senior Open in a playoff at Newport and the Senior PGA Championship.

And now? We’re heading to Andalucia.

That is the next stop for LIV Golf. Bland has been a member of the LIV since its inception in 2022, with Saudi funding. He competed on the rival tour but has no status as one of the PGA Tour Champions.

Senior majors are only granted an exemption for the following year (2025). Even if Bland wanted to play the PGA Tour Champions, he’d have to wait a year after his last appearance on LIV Golf. If he stops now, it will be next July.

But why would he want to do this?

Bland can now compete in the two biggest senior majors next year. Bland has already earned slightly more over $2.3 million on LIV Golf this year, with his best finish of tied for seventh. It’s a tight timetable with big money.

Bland made $4.4 million on LIV last year, and he earned just more than $3.5 million in seven tournaments during the 2022 season. Steve Stricker had to win six times, including three majors, to earn under $4 million on the PGA Tour Champions last year.

Men’s Golf Will Have A Good Attendance Record At The Paris Olympics

A true rock star.
Fast-talking Rocco Mediate now broadcasts a twice-weekly show on SiriusXM PGA Tour Radio. Now he’s bringing in a true rockstar.

Media and shock rock superstar Alice Cooper have teamed up for a monthly show called “Rolling the Rock with Alice Cooper and Rocco Mediate,” which premieres on Tuesday at 6 p.m. EDT.

Cooper began playing golf 50 years ago while recovering from alcoholism, has a handicap index of 4, and claims to be on the course six days a week, including while traveling.

Cooper and Mediate, a six-time PGA Tour champion best known for losing a U.S. Open playoff to Tiger Woods at Torrey Pines, will share stories from their careers, welcome guests from the golf and entertainment sectors, and discuss current golf topics.

“It’s a completely improvised ‘anything goes’ show. Cooper stated, “We don’t know what we’re going to talk about until we start.” “We’re quite literally just ‘rolling the rock.'”

Divots
This is Deere & Co.’s 25th year as title sponsor of the John Deere Classic, making it the PGA Tour’s second-longest continuous title sponsor after the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am (39 years). Cameron Young has 18 top-10 finishes in his three full PGA Tour seasons. He is still waiting for his first win. Richard Bland got $800,000 for his U.S. Senior Open triumph, the third-highest salary of his career. He won $1.175 million in a three-way tie for third place at LIV Golf events in Thailand and Greenbrier last year.

Stat of the Week
Florida State sophomore Luke Clanton tied for tenth place in the Rocket Mortgage Classic, becoming the third amateur this year to finish in the top ten on the PGA Tour. This features American Express winner Nick Dunlap.

Final word
“It simply made me a better player. You will not always play your best golf, but I am the best player I have ever been.” ― Richard Bland about his experience playing LIV Golf.

Minneapolis — They all had a motive to return. Every one of them.

Simone Biles must move past those agonizing two weeks in Japan three years ago, when the gymnastics sensation chose her mental health and safety over glory, inspiring some but infuriating others.

Suni Lee wanted to prove — maybe most importantly to herself — that the all-around gold medal she won while Biles watched from the stands was not a fluke.

Jordan Chiles hopes to turn the team silver she helped secure at the 2020 Games into gold.

Simone Biles Headlines A U.S. Women’s Gymnastics Team Eyeing Redemption At The Paris Olympics

Jade Carey will be an official member of the five-woman Olympic squad after qualifying as an individual qualifier, a route not open to the United States this time and one she has no desire to pursue again.

They’re all reclaiming the one-of-a-kind spotlight that only the sport’s largest stage can deliver, including 16-year-old newbie Hezly Rivera.

Their reasons are quite personal. However, their motivation is not clear.

“This is definitely our redemption tour,” Biles said after winning the U.S. trials on Sunday night, securing her third Olympic appearance. “I feel like we all have more to give.”

Perhaps no one more than Biles, who, at 27, is the oldest American woman to make an Olympic gymnastics squad since 1950. She never expected to be doing this nearly a decade after becoming a crossover sensation in the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro.

So here she is—still working, still pushing—not to silence the detractors who continue to bombard her social media mentions, asking if she will “quit” again, but because she is motivated to get the most out of her extraordinary skills.

“Nobody’s forcing me to do it,” said Biles, who won the all-around with a two-day total of 117.225, about six points more than Lee. “Every day, I get up and decide to work hard in the gym and perform for myself. I just wanted to assure myself that I could still do it.”

And do it at a level that no one else in her sport—or, when she’s at her peak, sports in general—can match.

A trip to France has never been in doubt since Biles returned from a two-year absence last summer. All she’s done in the previous 12 months is win her sixth global all-around title and her eighth and ninth national titles — both records — despite performing the most difficult gymnastics of her career.

She will be a prohibitive favorite when she goes onto the Bercy Arena floor, but there is still much work to be done before women’s qualifying on July 28. However, some items need to be cleaned up during the following four weeks.

Biles backpedaled after landing her Yurchenko double pike vault, demonstrating both the difficulty of the vault and the incredible power she creates while performing a move that few male gymnasts attempt and even fewer accomplish as cleanly.

She leaped off the beam after failing to land her side aerial, but she wasn’t as furious as she had been on Friday when she uttered an expletive in front of the entire globe.

Biles finished with a flourish in the floor exercise, her signature event. Though there was a little trip out of bounds, there was also unrivaled world-class tumbling, which just earned a shoutout from pop artist Taylor Swift, whose song “Ready For It” opens Biles’ routine.

She stepped down the podium to a standing ovation before sitting atop the steps to take in the occasion in what could be her final competitive round on American soil for quite some time. Perhaps ever.

Biles avoided questions about what lies ahead. That can wait. It’s been a long, winding trek back to this point. She intends to enjoy it while being part of a team with “a lot of weight on our shoulders.”

She believes she and her teammates are better prepared to manage it.

“It’s really nice that Tokyo gave us that opportunity to open up that stage for that talk,” Biles informed the crowd. “And so I think now athletes are a little bit more in tune and we just trust what our gut is saying.”

And Biles’ instincts told her that if she wanted to return, she had to do so on her terms. That entailed taking deliberate steps to ensure her life was no longer defined by her gymnastics.

She married Chicago Bears safety Jonathan Owens in the spring of 2023, and the couple is building a house in the northern Houston suburbs that they want to move into soon after Biles returns from Paris.

Biles travels to France as maybe the face of the United States Olympic movement, but she is well aware that more than a few of the millions who will tune in next month will be watching to see if the demons that wrecked her in Tokyo resurface.

Simone Biles Headlines A U.S. Women’s Gymnastics Team Eyeing Redemption At The Paris Olympics

While she still experiences periods of fear, such as at last year’s world championships, she has taken precautions to protect herself. She sees a therapist weekly, even during competition season, something she did not do in preparation for the 2020 Games.

The Americans will send their oldest women’s team to the Games, thanks to Biles’ unrivaled longevity—she hasn’t lost a meet she’s started and finished since 2013—and the NCAA’s relaxation of name, image, and likeness rules, which allowed Carey (24), Chiles (23) and Lee (21) to continue competing while cashing in on their newfound fame.

They have relied on that experience over a sometimes tumultuous race, which saw leading competitors Shilese Jones, Skye Blakely, and Kayla DiCello withdraw with leg problems. Their problems kept them out of the running for weeks before they could realize a lifelong dream.

Watching good friends leave the arena in tears reminded me of how narrow the gap between success and failure can be. Biles has remained on the right side of that divide for longer than she imagined. She’ll attempt to enjoy it despite the pressure.

She might have gone ahead of herself in 2021. She is determined to prevent this from happening again.

“I feel like success is just what I make it,” she told me. I’ve been successful by competing in Olympic trials and reaching the Paris Olympic team. So we’ll see what happens from there.

SOURCE – (AP)