Connect with us

Golf

Rickie Fowler’s Best Rio Experience and Why He Brushes Off the Haters

Published

on

Rickie Fowler is back in the U.S. after his weeklong trip to Rio with the U.S. diving team competing in the 2016 Rio Olympics with team USA. On Wednesday he spoke about his favorite moment from the Rio games. It was pretty awesome.

“I mean the whole trip is very special,” said Fowler. “To me my favorite moment was when I was back at the pool, the warm up pool with the swim team and Bubba came back with me. I had met the PR guy for the U.S. swim earlier in the week, Scott, and he was great and wanted us to come back and meet some of the team. They wanted to get pictures and it was cool to take pictures with other athletes I wanted pictures with.”

“They wanted pictures with me and the coaches who were back there for ten minutes or so,” continued Fowler. “We go to walk out and this is the warm up pool where all the countries have their kind of therapy tables and everything set up. Hundreds of people back there. We start to walk out and you start to hear the cowbell ring and they start chanting, ‘USA, USA.’

“Didn’t really think anything of it at first. Look back, they’re all starting to chant, ‘USA.’ I started pumping my fist and chanting, ‘USA’ back. In the meantime, obviously, you can hear a cowbell from pretty far. The whole pool, hundreds of people are looking straight over at us. A really cool moment. I probably could have swam — went out and swam the 100 meters.”

That would be a sight. Unfortunately Fowler also note that he had to swipe away those coming at him for his play and his affinity for being a social, public figure in a time when those who welcome the camera are sometimes reviled. He was asked about whether he felt like Justin Rose’s (who won the golf gold medal) publicity was being characterized as “embracing the Olympics” while his own was being characterized as “not focused enough.”

“It’s unfortunate if you’re at the Olympics and go see other events and spend time with athletes and enjoy the Olympic experience and actually embrace it and, you know, show everyone what it really means and how much it means to be there,” said Fowler. That’s the way it is now. You got haters. It’s unfortunate. We deal with them everyday. If we didn’t have them then we wouldn’t have the opportunity to really do what we get to do. I mean like I said, yeah, unfortunate for them. I’m sorry they have to result to putting hate out on social media. That might be the best part of their day. I’m enjoying it a lot more.”

Shake ’em.

giphy

Good stuff from Rick. You can tell he loved the week. Now he has Ryder Cup work to do.

Most Read

Copyright © 2011- 2023 White Maple Media