Golf notebook: Rio Olympic course due to open in 2015

Golf notebook: Rio Olympic course due to open in 2015

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Tom LaMarre, The Sports Xchange July 29, 2013The SportsXchange


--Despite a number delays caused by legal entanglements, construction on the course to be used when golf returns to Olympics in 2016 in Rio de Janeiro is on pace for a test event about a year before the Games, architect Gil Hanse said.



Despite the legal hassles over the property that delayed the start of work, Hanse said construction is expected to be done by the first half of 2014 and the course will be tournament-ready in the second half of 2015.



Golf will be played in the Olympics for the first time since 1904 in St. Louis, where the United States and Canada were the only countries that competed in the sport.



"It's a big deal because it's the first one in so long," Woods said.



--With all the slow play in professional golf, it's a little embarrassing to the game that 14-year-old Tianlang Guan of China (Masters) and 19-year-old Hideki Matsuyama of Japan (Open Championship) have been the only two players penalized for not keeping up in the majors this season.



"What I would love to see, as a fast player knowing it would never happen to me, would be for one of the top players to have that shot penalty and then it would really resonate throughout the rest of the field," said Montgomerie, who is now playing on the Champions Tour. "They are still taking too long.



Monty suggested that there should be an allotted time to play a round of golf, and that each group would be monitored by an official wielding a stopwatch.



"There are 52 referees out there at major championships, and they should all have a clock to be able to put them on the clock on the first tee to ensure they all get around in time," Montgomerie said.



"If the first two groups take five or more hours to go 'round, then the day is gone, you can't make it up. The biggest bugbear in golf is slow play."



--ESPN had record viewership ratings for its weekend telecasts of the Open Championship at Muirfield, which were driven by having eight of the top 26 players in the World Golf Rankings players, including four of the top 10, at or near the top of the leaderboard.



The telecast averaged nearly 4.4 million viewers and was the third-highest cable audience for a major championship. More viewers watched the Tiger Woods-Rocco Mediate Monday playoff in the 2008 U.S. Open at Torrey Pines, and the first round of the 2010 Masters, when Woods made his first start of the season in his comeback from a tabloid-filling scandal.




ESPN also had big increases in traffic on its digital platforms, with ESPN.com seeing an increase of 22 percent in visitors to its golf section during the Open, while the mobile platform had 32 percent more visitors.



O'Meara claimed the Claret Jug 15 years ago in a playoff overBrian Watts after winning the Masters earlier in the year, the only major championships of his career.



"I first set eyes on it in 1987, when I won the Lawrence Batley(International) here. In '91 I came back and played with Ian Baker-Finch, tied for the lead (after three rounds and finished in a tie for third).



Said Jonathan Seal, club captain at Royal Birkdale who presented O'Meara with a commemorative club tie: "It is a huge pleasure to extend Honorary Membership to Mark in the way that we have our other previous Open Champions going back to Peter Thomson, Arnold Palmer, Lee Trevino, Johnny Miller, Tom Watson and Ian Baker-Finch. On behalf of all the members of Royal Birkdale, we welcome Mark on board."



--The 2015 Senior PGA Championship will be played on the Pete Dye Course at French Lick Resort in French Lick, Ind., according to the Indianapolis Star.



"The venue would lend itself very nicely to a Senior PGA Championship," said Ted Bishop, president of the PGA of America, who would not confirm the selection of French Lick but commented on its suitability.



The Senior PGA Championship is the oldest of senior golf's four major championships, dating to 1937, when the inaugural event was played at Augusta National Golf Club at the request of Augusta founder Bobby Jones.



The Dye Course is part of a $500 million restoration that included the French Lick Springs and West Baden Springs hotels.



Golf Digest selected the 8,102-yard layout as the Best New Public Course when it opened in 2009, and it ranks 93rd on the magazine's listing of America's 100 Greatest Courses, public and private.



--Tom Watson, captain of the 2014 United States Ryder Cup team, will be inducted into Oak Hill Country Club's Hill of Fame on Aug. 5, three days before the start of the 95th PGA Championship on the club's East Course.



"With 39 PGA Tour victories, including eight major championships, 14 Champions Tour wins, a winning record in Ryder Cup play, and five PGA Tour money titles, Tom Watson is one of the legends of the game," said William Reeves, chairman of Oak Hill's Hill of Fame.