AUSTRALIAN GOLFER ADAM Scott has defended his decision to bypass the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, denying he has abandoned his country.
It has been 102 years since golf was an Olympic sport, but former world number one Scott will not be there, having passed on the chance to represent Australia in August.
The 13-time PGA Tour winner cited a busy schedule and family time as his main reasons for skipping the event, and stood by his decision on Wednesday.
“You know, I just don’t get to see my family enough,” he told reporters after playing in the Wells Fargo Championship pro-am.
“I think I’m seeing them six days in seven weeks and it would have been six in nine weeks had I gone to the Olympics. Those are just the hard decisions you have to make. That’s the way it is, unfortunately, and that’s the event I decided to skip.”
Though Scott’s reasoning is sound, considering the Olympics are squeezed between the PGA Championship in late July and the FedEx Cup play-offs beginning in late August, fellow Australians have publicly ridiculed him for not seizing a chance to win a gold medal for his country. But the decision was not easy.
“Well, the tough part was to choose not to represent Australia, I guess. That’s the tough part,” Scott said. “But I feel like I do that every week. I play over here or anywhere else outside of Australia, I’ve lived my life representing Australia and I feel I’ve tried to do the best job I can of that.
“Of course not everyone will understand my decision or like it, but not everyone’s in my position where I feel that’s something I’m not willing to sacrifice some family time for. But I think as well as the criticism, I think there was some very fair constructive comments about the whole thing, and some of my points of view and feelings were explained well, too.
“I hope it hasn’t had too big of a hit because I think that would be a little bit unfair. You know, we’ll all just move on. I’ll be back in Australia to play at the end of the year. I think I’m far from abandoning my country.”
The42 is on Snapchat! Tap the button below on your phone to add!
