Jon Rahm makes his Olympics debut this week at Le Golf National after a “heartbreaking” miss last time in Tokyo due to Covid-19.
The Spaniard enters Paris 2024 as one of the favorites for gold after his maiden LIV Golf victory in the UK last week, where he won his first tournament since the Masters last April.
Rahm is joined by fellow LIV Golfer David Puig in Paris this week, where the duo will be competing separately in the individual race for medals. He hopes that a team event will come in the future – with a mixed team golf event looking likely for LA 2028 – and also called for changes to the selection process.
The qualifying for the Olympics currently uses the Official World Golf Ranking system, which does not award his tour – LIV Golf – points. There are 7 LIV Golfers in the Olympics but big names like Bryson DeChambeau and Cameron Smith have missed out due to, in part, their tour’s lack of world ranking points.
“I think you can always do it, like with other sports, and allow the countries to pick themselves. There needs to be some guidelines, but like Team USA Basketball has freedom to choose whoever they want,” he said on the Olympics golf qualifying process.
“I understand it’s a different circumstance, but I think you need to let each country choose who they want to play, and in the future, I would also like to see some team aspect in the Olympics, as well, right.
“I mean, we are here representing Spain. So I would love to actually, as a partner or somehow, whether as a combined sport or us playing together, to be able to represent Spain. That would be extremely nice to share the stage with another player, to do something different, to maybe what we do every other day, right.”
Rahm won his maiden LIV Golf title this past weekend in the UK
(Image credit: Getty Images)
Rahm also opened up on his positive Covid-19 test ahead of Tokyo 2021, which came whilst he was World No.1.
“Yeah, at that time everything was so ambiguous. The virus; the protocols were changing and new information was coming every day,” he said.
“It was painful to physically feel good and not be able to go. To take five or six tests and only one of being Olympics and being denied entrance was very heartbreaking, especially I think it was the day before we were supposed to fly. That was hard.
“It’s not…
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