Despite currently being in the qualification spots, Brooks Koepka and Dustin Johnson may not tee it up in the Olympics this summer
Ahead of the Saudi International Brooks Koepka and Dustin Johnson have both offered some early thoughts about their potential involvement in the Olympics Games.
The Games will take place in Tokyo this summer but whether the current and former World No. 1s will be there is yet to be decided.
Due to golf’s long absence at the Olympics, many of today’s players have not grown up watching the sport in the Games and have always dreamed of winning majors and this is reflected in the thoughts of Koepka.
“The Olympics is still even new. It’s not something I grew up wanting to do. Golf wasn’t in the Olympics. It was never an option. So I kind of don’t know how I feel about that,” he said.
“We have four majors a year. Track [sports], you’ve got indoor and outdoor championships, different things like that, but that’s their big event. The Olympics only comes around every four years.
“Golf, we’ve got four majors every year, and now we’re going to add the Olympics and you’ve got the Ryder Cup or the Presidents Cup, plus the FedEx Cup for us, and that’s a lot of weeks on the road, a lot of travelling back and forth, a lot of time zones.
“It just all kind of depends how you feel, how your body feels. The four majors are definitely more important to for me. The FedEx Cup too, that’s a goal of mine. We’ll see where everything else falls.”
Johnson’s biggest concern is whether the Olympics would really be a suitable event to fit into his schedule.
“It’s something that you constantly battle with, making a good schedule that fits you,” he said. “Olympic year is more difficult just because of the way the schedule falls and obviously it’s an extra tournament that’s in the season so they moved some things around.
“Representing the United States in the Olympics is something that I’d definitely be proud to do. But is it going to fit in the schedule properly? I’m not really sure about that.”
Regardless of whether the duo will ultimately choose to play or not, they both currently occupy one of the US qualification spots. The top four ranked Americans in the top 15 of the world rankings on June 22 will qualify.
Tour editor covering men's golf, women's golf and anything else that involves the word golf, really. The talk is far better than the game, but the work has begun to change that.
