RIO DE JANEIRO -- Jaco van Zyl is a professional golfer of modest success, capturing most of his tournament titles in his homeland of South Africa, only briefly able to crack the PGA Tour.
Prior to this year, van Zyl had qualified for just three major championships in a 15-year career, not making the cut in any of them.
Clearly getting into the game's biggest tournaments is the dream, the goal for any golfer. Those who are consistently ranked among the top 50 in the world don't have to worry about their spots in the Masters, U.S. Open, Open or PGA Championship, but the rest of the game's players fight and scratch to earn those spots.
And that is why a decision van Zyl made this summer was met with amazement: he skipped two major championships for which he was exempt in order to prepare for the Olympic Golf Tournament.
"If I had to prioritize, this was it for me,'' van Zyl said of playing the Olympic event. "Not to take anything away from majors, but next year there are four more, the year after that there will be four more, 100 years after I retire there will be four more.
"This was an opportunity. I'm not 21 years old anymore. I really wanted to experience it. And I haven't regretted for it for one minute.''
Van Zyl (pronounced "van-seel") is 37 and has won 14 times on the Sunshine Tour, the main pro tour in South Africa, with his biggest victory coming at the Telecom PGA Championship, one of four victories in 2009.
Two years earlier he had qualified for the PGA Tour, but made just four cuts. And in 2011 he qualified for the European Tour, posting five top-10 finishes. Van Zyl still competes on both the European and Sunshine Tours and earlier this year, for the first time, moved into the top 50 in the Official World Golf Ranking.
That helped him secure spots in the U.S. Open, the Open and the PGA. But after missing the cut at Oakmont, van Zyl headed to the BMW International Open in Germany where he picked up an illness. The following week at the French Open he wasn't any better.
With the Open looming and the Olympic tournament not far away, he made the decision to pull out of the remaining major championships and focus on the Olympics. Prior to this week, he had not played competitively since a tie for 62nd in Paris in early July.
"The majors are ultimately why we play,'' he said. "But this is just something unique. For some of us it's a once in a lifetime opportunity.''
Van Zyl's decision is even more amazing when you consider how many male players pulled out of the Olympic tournament. There were 21 eligible who declined a spot, including the top four in the world: Jason Day, Dustin Johnson, Jordan Spieth and Rory McIlroy.
South Africans Louis Oosthuizen, Charl Schwartzel and Branden Grace also declined, opening up a place for van Zyl. Brandon Stone is the other South African golfer in the tournament.
"What Jaco did was an important statement for golf's future in the Olympics,'' said Gary Player, 80, the winner of nine major championships who is serving as an advisor for the South African golfers this week. "What if he wins a gold medal after sitting out of two major championships to prepare? What a story that would be.
"I like to think of it as he put his country ahead of himself. He had a chance to win prize money and world ranking points at The Open and PGA Championship, but being able to say you are an Olympic athlete and potentially a medalist for your country is priceless. Hats off to him and all the other golfers in Rio, men and women.''
Van Zyl will need a big rally to get one of those coveted medals after opening the tournament with an even-par score of 71 and not being able to make up any ground on Friday morning after shooting 74. He is now 3 over through 36 holes.
"Basically for me this is a big week,'' van Zyl said. "I'd like to do well and I'd like to play well. Whether a medal is there at the end of the week, I just want to walk away having played nicely.''
