While 144 men and 144 women get underway at Galgorm Castle & Massereene tomorrow at the ISPS Handa World Invitational, the Men’s Olympic golf will already be well underway when most of us wake tomorrow am.
The golf course is some distance away from the main action in the centre of Tokyo so the golfers aren’t staying in the Olympic Village with the other athletes and ahead of the event Ireland’s golf coach Neil Manchip gave his view on the team preparations, the golf course and of course the atmosphere in the camp.
“The team have had a great few days practice and it was great to see the whole infrastructure around the place. The golf course is about 1 hour 30 minutes away from the Olympic village in Tokyo but we’ve spent some time there with some of the other Irish athletes, boxers, rugby sevens and the rowers etc. which was brilliant.
“The Kasumigaseki Country Club where the golf event takes place is a beautiful course with smooth, bent grass greens that aren’t running all that fast so are really scorable and great for putting.
“The rough is very tough though and the ball can really sit down in it and it will be very interesting to see how many drivers the players hit as there are quite a lot of bunkers in play at around 300-320. Some of the long hitters can carry over them and leave very short approach shots while others will have to play more tactically off the tee.
“Both Rory and Shane are in great form and they played another 18 holes today quite early in the morning as it was really really warm with the forecast for mid-thirties again tomorrow and Friday with high humidity and maybe a chance of thunderstorms
“All in all it’s going really well and we’re all looking forward to getting started tomorrow.”
We’re wishing Rory, Shane and Neil as well as all the Irish athletes all the very best.
IRISH TEE OLYMPIC GAME TEE TIMES (Irish time)
2.25am – Rory McIlroy (Alongside Colin Morikawa & Sunjae Im)
2.36am – Shane Lowry (Alongside Patrick Reed & Tommy Fleetwood)
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