PARIS, France (AFP) — Collin Morikawa hopes the Olympics will eventually become golf’s biggest event, ahead of the men’s competition in the Paris Games this week.
The sport was reintroduced to the Olympic schedule after a 112-year absence for Rio de Janeiro in 2016 but several top players opted not to play in Brazil or in Tokyo three years ago.
But all eight of the world’s top 10 players who qualified will tee it up at Le Golf National on Thursday for the opening round.
Two-time major champion Morikawa is part of the United States team, which also features world No. 1 Scottie Scheffler, reigning Olympic champion Xander Schauffele and fifth-ranked Wyndham Clark.
“It’s one of the biggest honor you can ever have and that can’t be taken lightly,” Morikawa said.
“When you are representing your country, it’s the biggest thing you can have.”
“For these other (Olympic) athletes, it’s the biggest event of their life and it happens once every four years.”
“I think that’s going to bleed into golf hopefully later on. We’re still in the early stages and we’ll see where it goes.”
“People are going to want to keep playing this... it’s one of the biggest honors of our lives so far.”
Morikawa fell agonizingly short of winning a medal in Tokyo, being the last man eliminated in a seven-way play-off for bronze on the fourth hole by Taiwan’s Pan Cheng-tsung.
“It sucked,” he admitted.
“I don’t think I understood the weight of it because it felt like a normal play-off that you just grind through and see if you can beat everyone and stay afloat essentially.”
“People, all my sponsors, want to say: you finished tied-third. I don’t, I finished tied for fourth. There’s no medal. There’s nothing you can do and you live with that.”
Clark, who won the 2023 US Open, has been inspired by the dedication of his fellow Olympians from other sports.
“It’s amazing that they go for four years just to have one event or multiple events but just in this one or two-week stretch,” he said.
“Really makes me appreciate that we have a bunch of big events every year. For me it only inspires you to see how hard they work, and they come to this moment. It’s amazing that they excel under the lights when they have to.”
The US are the only country with more than two players for the men’s golf, with American top-10 stars Bryson DeChambeau and Patrick Cantlay not even ranked highly enough to qualify.