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Tuesday, 02 December 2008

Ogilvy: Golf doesn't belong at the Olympics

29/08/2008 4:53:00 PM.  | 
Golf has a great chance of being included at the 2016 Olympic Games, but don't expect to see Australia's two best players in action.
   
Geoff Ogilvy and Adam Scott, who should be in the prime of their careers in eight years, both express little interest in representing their country at the Olympics.
   
It's not that they are not interested in the Olympics.
   
Ogilvy was a handy junior runner before turning his attention to golf, and he loves watching the Olympics.
   
He just doesn't think golf should be part of it.
   
"I see the Olympics as swimming, track and field, weightlifting sports where the Olympics is the pinnacle," he said on the eve of the US PGA Tour's Deutsche Bank Championship.
   
"For us, the pinnacle is four times a year, in the majors. It's the way it's always been."
   
Ogilvy, the 2006 US Open champion, realises that golf's Olympic inclusion would guarantee greater government funding in many countries, including probably Australia, so he understands why the sport's governing bodies are pushing their case with the International Olympic Committee, which next year will decide what two sports to add for the 2016 Games.
   
And he does not completely discount the possibility of playing, if only because he thinks it would be cool to meet other athletes from all corners of the globe.
   
"If it didn't get in the way of anything else, it would be great to hang out in the Olympic village. I'd be doing it more for that than actually playing the Olympics," he said.
   
Scott, meanwhile, said Olympic golf would be like Olympic tennis an afterthought that receives only minor attention.
   
"I can't tell you who won tennis at the last Olympics," said Scott, who was a very good tennis player before focusing on golf.
   
"I don't think there's any place for golf in the Olympics. I didn't grow up looking to win an Olympic medal. I grew up trying to win a green jacket."
   
But as with Ogilvy, Scott did not rule out playing Olympic golf: "It could be a once-in-a-lifetime experience but I'm not going to base my career around it," he said.

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