The latest on golf’s return to the 2016 Rio Olympic games

By Australian Golf Digest

WITH less than a year to go until golf returns to the Olympics, we look at how the Rio 2016 games are shaping up for our sport.

Below is a video from the Golf Channel’s Morning Drive on how the Olympics course is shaping up, with reporters saying it is in the ‘growing phase’ of course construction.

As we detailed in the July issue of Australian Golf Digest, Aussie golf course shaper Ben Hillard worked on the Rio layout under designer Gil Hanse, who won the project based on his bid to create a course with similarities to those of the famed Melbourne Sandbelt.

Hillary said after construction, the course resembled the Sandbelt in the following ways:

“The most obvious similarities to the Sandbelt would be the bunkering and also that one of the par 3s was inspired by the 16th hole of Royal Melbourne’s West Course. But there are other elements like the short grass surrounds, the shaping of the greens, use of long and short holes bordering on different pars and the importance of course management, which is paramount on the Sandbelt. But it is also its own golf course and the site dictates the flow and character of the course. One of the biggest differences with the Sandbelt would be that there are five holes bordered by lakes.”

The Olympic golf coin has been released in Brazil ahead of the games.