From reigniting a passion for the game to a new opinion of what it means to have golf in the Olympic Games, Paul Casey, Rory McIlroy and Collin Morikawa are leaving Tokyo with new perspectives.
Paul Casey, Rory McIlroy and Collin Morikawa were all part of the seven-man bronze medal play-off during the final round of the Olympic Men’s Golf Competition won by C.T. Pan, and all three men are leaving Tokyo with one thing in common: the certainty that golf should remain in the Olympics.
Casey had already spent much of last week expressing his love for the Olympic Games and what it meant to represent Great Britain in just the fourth ever golf competition, but the Englishman is now also coming home with a rekindled passion for the game.
And while there is disappointment at his own result after playing in the final group on Sunday, it was clear he had run out of superlatives to describe what the entire experience meant to him.
“This week if anything it's sort of, it's kind of like reignited my sort of passion to sort of work even harder,” said Casey, who was eliminated on the first play-off hole.
“I'm disappointed I didn't win a medal, but I take so much away… such a positive experience from the whole week. For me that's the win.
“This is my first Olympics, so I think that's the one thing I witnessed a lot this week is there's triumph and there's the heartache and we have seen it in the village we have seen it in Team GB. Now you've seen it here on the golf course as well. First of all, what a day to play the final group in the Olympics with Hideki and then Xander gold medallist in Japan. Brilliant. For me that was one of the coolest rounds to be a part of.
“I wish I could have got my driver working a bit better and I struggled, but I battled and I'm so very proud of how hard I worked and tried to squeeze as much out of my game as I possibly could. I would love to have brought a medal home, not just for myself but for Team GB, it would have been the ultimate. But the whole week has been phenomenal. I've made friends; I can't say enough good things about my experience this week.”
A huge part of that experience for Casey was choosing to live in the athlete’s village, getting to know other athletes and going through the ups and downs experienced by the rest of Team GB.
“The village life is amazing,” he continued. “I'm not sure I could do it every week. It's so different from what we experience. But Team GB they are amazing. We have got this entire building in the village, they have got a performance lodge down the road, the heart and soul and energy and time that goes into providing the athletes with the best opportunities to accomplish their dreams and perform at their best and hopefully bring home medals sometimes happens, sometimes doesn't. I'm amazed at it.
“For me it's like watching guys like the Rugby Sevens guys and girls, their funding gets pulled and then they end up here and then they're missing out on medals and that's just like heart break. And then watching other people bring gold home. You get the full range of emotions, which is quite something. You would love it to be sort of different and change, get a medal for certain people, because you feel like they deserve it, but that's, again that's the way the Olympics is.”
As for whether he thinks golf should become a permanent sport in the Olympic Games, his answer was unwavering.
“I think you can see the passion that everybody's had this week and everybody that's participated this week. I think if you ask them should golf remain it's a hundred percent yes. The golfers that passed on it, I've got no words for them, all I would say is that I think representing your country is the greatest thing can you do.”
He’s not the only one who thinks so. Rory McIlroy has admittedly had a huge change of heart over his feelings towards golf’s participation.
The Irishman said he’d never tried as hard in his life to finish third as he admitted that the experience of it had completely reversed his opinion.
“I definitely think so,” McIlroy said when asked if he would now be an advocate for golf at the Olympic Games.
“I made some comments before that were probably uneducated and impulsive, but coming here experiencing it, seeing, feeling everything that goes on, not just Olympic golf but just the Olympics in general, that sort of Olympic spirit's definitely bitten me and I'm excited how this week's turned out and excited for the future.
“It makes me even more determined to go to Paris and trying to pick one up. It's disappointing going away from here without any hardware, I've been saying all day I never tried so hard in my life to finish third. But it's been a great experience, today was great day to be up there in contention for a medal, certainly had a different feeling to it than I expected.
“I wish I was leaving here with a medal but it's been a brilliant week. I've really enjoyed spending so much time with Shane and all the guys and it's just been a throwback to the good old days when we didn't play for money. It was a really enjoyable week and I hope we both make it for Paris again in three years’ time and have another good crack at it.”
Recent Open Champion Collin Morikawa was the final man to be beaten in the bronze medal play-off by C.T. Pan, but was quick to describe the entire week as a career highlight.
“One of the best experiences of your life,” Morikawa said of becoming an Olympian.
“I'm walking away whether I get a medal or not I'm an Olympian and that's what I said from the beginning of the week. But I think what today brought out of me was more than just playing for myself I was playing for our country and I was able to fight and dig deep. Sometimes that's what you need.
“But to anyone that has second thoughts or doubts about whether golf should be in the Olympics or whether they should go and play to represent their country, they absolutely should because the Olympics reaches a wider audience than anything, a lot of tournaments that we play. And whether this grows the game substantially or not, we're doing our part to putting golf on the world stage and to see other athletes this is their pinnacle and I think golf will be very exciting for the future in the Olympics.”
