Fun day at the golf course with Olympic medalists
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Justin Rose of Great Britain tees off on the 16th hole during the third round of the men's golf event at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Saturday. / AP-Yonhap
By Valter Junior
RIO DE JANEIRO ― In Brazil, golf is a sport for those who can afford to play it, not for those who want to play it. So most Brazilians have never touched a golf club or even been on a golf course, including myself. The golf tournament at the Rio Olympics was a great opportunity for people to get in touch with the sport. The tickets sold for a reasonable price (around $30).
On Sunday, I planned to follow the lead group of Justin Rose, Henrik Stenson and Marcus Fraser, who were supposed to start at 10:39 a.m. I arrived 40 minutes earlier, with plenty of time to get used to the golf world. My first surprise was the number of people going to see the last round of the tournament. At the entrance, the fans received a folder with the rules and the day’s schedule.
I had no idea how it would be to follow the leaders. From the beginning I noticed that it wasn’t going to be as easy as I imagined.
Let’s go to the first hole! As my eyes are not trained to see golf balls after the drive, I missed the ball traveling through the air over the fairway. So I went with the flow heading to the green. Many people had arrived earlier. So I could find no vantage point from which to watch the putts. Then I had to decide if I would watch the drives or the putts. It would be tough watching both of them for the same hole. I chose the putts and decided to head for a couple of putting greens ahead of the leaders. So I went to the third hole.
I was paying attention to all the talk around me, no matter if it was in English or in Portuguese. All the people were talking with conviction about names and strokes. I felt dumb. At the third hole, I could see Bubba Watson, one of the most loved players by those who were at Barra da Tijuca, where the Olympic Village and many sports venues are located. There was massive Argentinean support for Emiliano Grillo as well. Due to those enthusiastic spectators, volunteers had trouble controlling the crowd at the golf course.
“Brazilians don’t know anything about golf and Argentineans have no respect at all,” complained a volunteer who was talking with his friends.
All the volunteers at the golf course had backgrounds in sports. Because it is not an easy task to work at a golf tournament, you need to know what you are doing, different from the others sports that had randomly selected volunteers. So every volunteer was knowledgeable about golf. The golf world in Brazil seems so small that volunteers and supporters all knew each other. It was like a reunion, and I was an outsider.
So I started to jump in to odd holes. From three, to five, then to seven and then to nine. This strategy allowed me to see the putts of all the golfers in the last two groups. But there was a gap being created between them, as Marcus Fraser was having a bad day and was giving up on making it to the podium.
After nine holes, I was thinking about finding a place in the stands to see the last hole. Well, many people had already done that before me. The players who were vying for the gold medal were on the last part of the course and the stands and the greens were already full of fans. So I decided to take a break.
I went back to the entrance to play in the fun zone. First I made two new friends: Jacsson and Adriano.
Just like me, both had never attended a golf tournament before. They use to follow golf on TV and they were sad because Phil Mickelson wasn’t at Rio. We played a six-hole tournament of mini golf. Who won it? I have no idea. But we had fun with our “powerful” strokes. After that, I went to the driver challenge. I was quite happy when I hit the ball on my second attempt.
As we say in Brazil, on Sunday there was “a sun to each one” because it was so hot. So I decided to stay at the 17th hole where there was shade. There I could see Sergio Garcia making his putts. He had a good Sunday, but he was in bad shape from the day before. I could follow seven groups of players, including the group with An Byeong-hun and the other player with Kiradech Aphibarnrat, who made the most beautiful shot I saw on my golf day.
At the end it wasn’t possible to see Justin Rose, the gold medalist, make his last shot. Nevertheless, it was a fun day and golf has a new fan, me. But I had to leave quickly from there because at night I wanted to see Usain Bolt and you know how fast he can be.
Valter Junior is a journalist for Metro Brazil. He can be reached at vajunior@gmail.com.