McIlroy defends golf’s place at 2016 Olympics

Rory McIlroy believes the spate of withdrawals from this summer’s Olympics is not embarrassing for golf because the Games do not represent the ‘pinnacle’ of the sport.

McIlroy, who is due to marry fiancee Erica Stoll next year, opted out of representing Ireland in Rio after citing his concerns over the Zika virus, a mosquito-borne virus which has been linked to defects in newborn babies and Guillain-Barre, a rare neurological syndrome that causes temporary paralysis in adults.

World number one Jason Day and US Open runner-up Shane Lowry also withdrew their names from consideration this week, joining a growing list of players which includes Australian pair Marc Leishman and Adam Scott, South African trio Branden Grace, Louis Oosthuizen and Charl Schwartzel and Fiji’s Vijay Singh. Graeme McDowell also made himself unavailable as his wife is due to give birth to their second child during the Games.

Speaking ahead of the French Open at Le Golf National, McIlroy was coincidentally forced to bat away an insect as he answered the first of several questions on the topic, including whether the number of withdrawals meant golf should not have returned to the Games for the first time since 1904.

“I think that’s not for me to say,” the four-time major winner said. “I wasn’t a part of the process. The R&A and some of the other bodies that run our sport thought it was a great idea, and obviously it is, to try and get golf into different markets, and the Olympics is obviously a great platform to do that.

“I’ve said to people I have four Olympic Games (major championships) a year. That’s my pinnacle. That’s what I play for. That’s what I’ll be remembered for.

“Some people argue that it would have been better to send amateurs there, but the whole reason that golf is in the Olympics is because they wanted the best players to go and compete. But unfortunately with where it is this year, people just aren’t comfortable going down there and putting themselves or their family at risk.

“I’d say if the Olympic Games were in most other cities or most other countries in the world this year, you wouldn’t find as many people not wanting to go and participate.