Spieth skipping Olympics, latest star golfer to withdraw

Golf waited 112 years to get back into the Olympics.

The women’s list of 60, by comparison, features all the top-10 players.

The announcement was made Monday here at Royal Troon Golf Club, site of this week’s British Open, by Peter Dawson, president of the International Golf Federation.

“In the phone call, it was out of concern for the health issues that we’ve been talking about”.

All have indicated support for 2020 in Tokyo.

It now means none of the world’s top four golfers will be in Rio with Day, Dustin Johnson, Spieth and McIlroy all making themselves unavailable.

Still, having a major golf tournament without the star power of Spieth, McIlroy, Day and Johnson is a letdown. South Africa’s 39th-ranked Lee-Anne Pace was the only female professional to announce her withdrawal ahead of Monday’s announcement.

The men will have eight of the top 15 in the world in Rio.

A number of other top players, including Adam Scott, Branden Grace, Louis Oosthuizen, Hideki Matsuyama and Charl Schwartzel, will also skip the Rio Olympics, per Kyle Porter of CBS Sports.

“We have invested a huge amount of time and effort on player education and they’ve had no lack of opportunity, I think, to make their own well-informed decisions about what they want to do”, he said. But we do understand why these individual decisions have been taken. Spieth was not expected to speak until Tuesday.

Johnson believes that it is too early to tell how the string of high-profile withdrawals will affect golf’s return to the Games. The Ryder Cup player said he chose to withdraw because of poor form.

Losing the top four could be a big setback for men’s golf and its bid to stay in the Olympics.

Dawson said he felt certain the International Olympic Committee would consider all things Rio when it meets next year.

“We are particularly gratified to see how many countries are represented among the men and women and anticipate compelling competitions for both on the outstanding golf course that Gil Hanse and Amy Alcott have created”.

“My guess is they want a World Cup before they want a gold medal, they’d want an NBA Championship before they want a gold medal”. Spieth’s place will be taken by Matt Kuchar, who reached No 15 in the world rankings two weeks ago with a tie for third in the Bridgestone Invitational.