Team Ireland Golf Team Confirmed for Tokyo 2020

July 6, 2021

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Team Ireland has officially selected the golfers who will compete in the Olympic Games in Tokyo this summer. Ireland will be fielding a full contingent in Tokyo, having qualified two players in both the Men’s Individual Stroke Play, and the Women’s Individual Stroke Play, each event takes place over four days.

The golf venue is the Kasumigaseki Country Club on the outskirts of Tokyo city, and the tournament runs from Thursday 29 July until Saturday 7 August 2021,

Players picked to represent Ireland

The men’s event is the first to start and will feature Stars Rory Mcllroy and Shane Lowry. In the women’s event, Leona Maguire and Stephaine Meadow will compete in their second official Olympic Games after their 2016 Rio journey. Both are coming off the Women’s PGA Championship with Maguire boasting her highest finish in a major championship, finishing fifteenth.

Rory McIlroy and Shane Lowry have been confirmed as Ireland's two-man golfing team for the Olympics 🇮🇪

A duo fit to take on the world's best 🤝 pic.twitter.com/oPPZ0PRqrJ

— SportsJOE (@SportsJOEdotie) June 22, 2021

When discussing her role for Tokyo, Maguire added;

“Rio was one of the best experiences I’ve ever had. The Olympics is the biggest sporting event in the world, and to represent Ireland on the stage like that is an incredible honour. I’m really looking forward to Tokyo. Golf is massive in Asia and particularly Japan. It will be my first time in Japan, and hopefully, I can take the experiences that I had in Rio and build on them. In Rio, I played well, but I think I was caught up in the experience of it and was happy to be there. But I’m a little more dialled in for Tokyo, and I’m trying to finish as high up that leader board as I can.”

Leona Maguire and Stephanie Meadow are heading to Tokyo! 🇮🇪

After an exciting few weeks on the LGPA tour, they will represent Team Ireland at this year's Olympics.https://t.co/iKfL6DF3vr

— Her Sport (@HerSportDotIE) July 5, 2021

Team Interviews

David Kearney, Team Coach for the Women’s Team said;

“Whilst the Olympics is very different to a normal LPGA Tour week, our players have done a great job preparing and planning as if it’s the same and we’re delighted to finally have the team formally selected. With Covid-19 considerations, there are more potential performance disablers but we will be prepared to be agile and acceptant of not everything being as it normally is. This agility will help create the optimum performance space.

“All players have shown some great form this year and both Stephanie and Leona already have an Olympic Games under their belt at Rio. Personally, I’m very proud to have known them both since they were 9 and 11 years old respectively and am looking forward to supporting them in Tokyo, along with everyone else in Ireland.”

Lowry Speaks

In the men’s event, Offaly’s Shane Lowry will make his Olympic debut and admitted to looking forward to competing in the games for the first time;

“It is starting to be real. We played the US Open recently, so we’re really focused on that. And then all of a sudden, it is ‘wow, the Olympics is actually pretty close,’ so it’s very exciting. It is such an exciting experience to go through all the gear – everybody knows how patriotic I am, so to have your own gear with our team logo on it is pretty cool!

Team Ireland Chef de Mission for Tokyo, Tricia Herberle admitted to being excited about the team;

“We are very excited to have a full contingent of Golfers representing Team Ireland at the Olympic Games in Tokyo. All four players are world-class with Leona and Stephanie already having a multi-Games experience in Rio. It’s also very special to have globally recognised players like Rory and Shane competing for the first time at an Olympics. There are medals for the taking and while no doubt this is a different type of tournament to what they normally play, it will be great to watch the competitions unfold..”