Golf has no place in the Olympics, says Tom Watson
The eight-time major champion Tom Watson has criticized the decision of including the sport of golf into the Olympics at Rio de Janeiro in 2016.
The game is making its return to Olympics, after being absent for more than one century. After the 1904 Olympics, golf was removed from the list.
Earlier this year, the Olympics officials decided to bring back the game to its roster for the next two editions of the Summer Games.
The decision was lauded by players and the officials. However, Watson had a completely different point of view.
According to him, the inclusion of golf in Olympics will dilute the importance of the four major golf championships that are held every year.
"I don't want to pour cold water on it but I don't think it should be in the Olympic Games," Watson told reporters on Tuesday ahead of the Australian Open at The Lakes Golf Club in Sydney. "I still think of Olympics as track and field and not golf, to be
honest with you”.
In addition to that, he also said that the Olympics will also disturb the overall schedules on different tours around the world.
Moreover, a number of top-notch players will prefer to skip their regular tournaments, in a bid to make preparations for the Olympics medal.
As a result, even big tournaments will not get a good representation from top-notch players.
While talking about the ban on belly putters, he supported the decision of prohibiting the use of long-putters. He said that the long-putters, also known as belly putters, made it easy to make putts.
“My son Michael, with a conventional putting stroke, he couldn’t make it from 2 feet, but he went to a belly putter and he makes everything,” Watson said. “The game is fun for him now, so there lays the danger. Do we take the ability for people to have fun
away?”
Three of the last five major champions used long-putters to claim their victories, including the British Open champion Ernie Els.
After recording his victory, Els himself admitted that he was “cheating like the rest of them are”.
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