Jordan Spieth: Skipping Olympics hardest call of my life

Rory McIlroy’s swipe at golf in the Olympics may have raised hackles within the International Golf Federation but its president Peter Dawson at least heard more conciliatory words yesterday from another prominent Rio absentee.

World number three and double major champion Jordan Spieth struck a more statesmanlike tone than McIlroy yesterday, the American preceding his Irish adversary in media centre at Troon to explain his reasons for deciding not to compete at next month’s Games when golf returns to the Olympic fold for the first time since 1904.

McIlroy would later give a refreshingly honest if not diplomatic assessment of his feelings about golf at the Games, suggesting the sport did not matter as an Olympic event compared to track and field, swimming and diving, and it was never his ambition to help grow the game when he started playing it.