SCOTLAND'S Martin Laird has joined growing calls for organisers to abandon thoughts of staging a 72-hole strokeplay competition when golf returns to the Olympics in 2016.
Sixty men and a similar number or women players are in line to compete in Rio de Janeiro when golf returns to the Games for a first time since 1904 but there is unease over the intended format of the event.
Laird, second highest Scot in the world rankings behind Paul Lawrie, would then be 33 if he qualified to play for Great Britain and Ireland. "We play 72 holes every week and, on top of suggestions that the World Cup is going back to 72-hole strokeplay, it would be a travesty if golf in the Olympics was also 72 holes.
"It's fun playing best-ball and foursomes. We should be playing it [the Games] as a team event; if the Olympics was to be an individual 72-hole event, it would be like any other tournament. It would make the Olympics more special to get away from 72 holes."
Laird was speaking after failing to record a birdie on day two of the Bridgestone Invitational in Akron, Ohio. The North Carolina-based Scot bogeyed his seventh and 14th holes to end the day with a 72 and fall back to level par for the $ 8.5m event.
American Jim Furyk added a 66 to his opening 63 to keep the clubhouse lead at 11-under-par and be three shots clear of Spain's Rafael Cabrera-Bello (65).
England's Lee Slattery celebrated his birthday by carding a one-over second-round 71 to be lying at four under and inside the top six. He was also the clubhouse leading British player in the elite 78-player field.
Slattery left the course to learn that former PGA Tour pro, Brandel Chamblee, now a TV analyst with the Golf Channel, had criticised the inclusion of last year's Madrid Masters champion in the Firestone field. "At 230th in the world rankings, Lee Slattery doesn't deserve his place in the field," claimed Chamblee, who competed in 370 Tour events winning just once. In his 15 years on the Tour he finished inside the top-50 also just once.
"I'm here because of my Madrid Masters win but then there's a guy who finished third on the Australasian Tour last year also competing this week," said Slattery. "So I earned my place and I now feel I've justified my place."
Tiger Woods again struggled with his putter, posting a two over 72 to fall back to two over in an event he has won eight times.
Lawrie was also at two over, but in the early stages of his second round.
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