Olympic golf test event pushed back until 2016

Golf’s return to the Olympic Games after a 112-year absence is just over a year away but the test event the International Golf Federation hoped to stage this year has been pushed back to the first quarter of 2016.

Ireland’s Olympic Team Captain, Paul McGinley is one of a long list of players the IGF has contacted as it bids to assemble a top class field and stage what will now be a one-day exhibition rather than a full tournament on the Gil Hanse designed course near Rio de Janeiro that has been plagued by red-tape trouble since construction began.

The IGF denied at St Andrews yesterday that there were any pending legal actions against the golf course, which opened in March amid criticism from environmental activists. Ostensibly, the reason for the delayed announcement of the test event is more to do with the lack of infrastructure around the site than the added difficulty in getting players to Brazil in December.

Ty Votaw, vice-president of the IGF said: “The IGF and its representatives made a visit back in June of this year.

“We prepared a report that’s in Olympic terms called an ‘homologation report’ looking at where things stood in the preparation of the golf course as well as the worldwide schedule of golf.

“We think it would be better to have the test event take place after having had the benefit of a second grow-in season, taking into consideration the availability of players, world-class players on a November-December time frame, has led us to recommend that we move the test event to the first quarter of 2016.

“And with that, we think we have a much better chance of having a test event when the golf course is as close to a Games-ready condition as possible.

“We also think that the type of an event at that time given everybody’s schedules is that it would be more of an exhibition, limited to a one-day competition, if you will.”

Last November, a Rio de Janeiro judge denied a request from prosecutors to halt construction of the course because of environmental concerns. IGF president Peter Dawson insisted there were no more legal cases pending.

Dawson said: “There’s nothing outstanding. All legal issues have been resolved.”