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Zach Johnson watched 'the sports that should be in the Olympics', not golf
Zach Johnson wasn’t interested in Olympic golf the last two weeks. In fact, he didn’t watch a shot of it, and that’s largely because he doesn’t think the game should be a part of the Olympic program in the first place.
“Oh, I didn’t watch golf,” Johnson told the New York Post. “I’d rather watch the sports that should be in the Olympics. I’d rather watch the athletes who train for four years for that one week. I’d rather watch swimming and diving, track and field — the athletes that are relevant for one week. All of our [golf] athletes are relevant 24-7, 365. I just don’t see the need for golf to be in the Olympics. Same thing with basketball. It’s relevant all the time. LeBron James, Kevin Durant? They’re relevant all the time.”
The two-time major winner’s argument was a common refrain among those who have balked at golf being an Olympic sport. Golfers dream of majors, those critics have said, not of winning medals. Those same critics posit that the only appropriate Olympic sports are the ones where the Olympics is, basically, the most important event in that sport.
Johnson said he would like to have seen amateurs representing their country in a team-based format, which could well be added for Olympic golf in Tokyo in 2020.
However, it seems Johnson’s biggest gripe with the Olympics is that it cramped the majors schedule this summer, forcing the British Open and PGA Championship to be played in a three-week span. While most players asked about it publicly at the PGA Championship reacted with ambivalence, Johnson didn’t see it that way.
“[T]he fact that it put a kink in our schedule this year irritates me,” he said. “To mess with the four tournaments that matter most because you’re at the Olympics, I’ve got a strong, strong disdain for that.”
Ryan Ballengee is a Yahoo Sports contributor. Find him on Facebook and Twitter.
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