Each to their own. Some golfers, like Rickie Fowler and Justin Rose are excited about Olympic golf, wheras Rory McIlroy is much more relaxed about the whole thing.

After the Open Championship Rory said this to the press about playing for Ireland in the games.

“I am doing it becuse it is the right thing to di and I missed it last time. For golf to be an Olympic sport you need your best players there and I want to represent the game of golf more than anything else.

“I don’t know there’s much to look forward to. It’s obviously going to be a very different environment. I’m looking forward to getting another week’s golf in and trying to get my game in shape. As I said there’s not much else to do there”.

So there’s not a lot of patriotism involved, but if he were to win the Olympic gold medal something might shift. Perhaps it is because as an Ulsterman, he’s acually British, but has chosen to represent Ireland. At this stage in his life and career, the bigger picture -apart from representing the game of golf- doesn’t seem to loom large, he said not so long ago that his job wasn’t to encourage participation or growing the game. Perhaps it is because he is happily settled in America and that’s where his focus is.

But a good performance this week could change all that.