Angela Stanford seeks to jump-start Olympic dream at Irving event

At one point, Angela Stanford envisioned a berth on the 2016 U.S. Olympic team as a crowning achievement to her professional golf career.

A participant on six U.S. Solheim Cup teams, including each of the past five, the Fort Worth resident and former TCU standout loves representing her country.

She still embraces the idea of making a late surge in the world rankings to become part of this year’s U.S. Olympic golf delegation when the sport returns to the Summer Games for the first time since 1904.

But for Stanford, 38, there has been a perspective shift on the Road to Rio.

“I once thought that, when I got to 2016, if I made the Olympics, I think that would be a good way to go out,” said Stanford, who will compete in this week’s Volunteers of America Texas Shootout in Irving.

“But what I’m learning is you can’t control passion and you can’t control how much you want to work at something. I still have the passion to work at it, to work even harder. Not just for the Olympics, but I don’t think anyone wants to go out playing bad. I no longer have a timetable for this.”

“This” would be retirement, a thought banished from Stanford’s brain as she prepares for Thursday’s opening round of the $1.3 million LPGA Tour event at Las Colinas Country Club.

Instead, she is hoping to climb from her perch at No. 59 in the women’s world golf rankings (13th among U.S. players) and begin a hot streak that carries her to Rio de Janeiro for the Olympic women’s golf competition, Aug. 18-21.

If not Rio, then perhaps a victory in next Sunday’s final round in Irving or at a major championship later this season. With five LPGA Tour titles and $9,404,132 in earnings on her career résumé, the Saginaw Boswell graduate would like to see more tangible results from a renewed commitment to golf that marked her off-season and, in February, produced a season-best 13th-place finish at the Honda LPGA Thailand event.

Although she acknowledged her Olympic dream qualifies as a long shot, Stanford said she enjoyed filling out the forms for participants earlier this season.

Her passion for the event burns as brightly today as it did in 2009, when the announcement was made that golf would return as an Olympic sport in 2016 and 2020. Beyond that, there are no guarantees of gold-medal opportunities for Olympic golfers.

“I still want to play in the Olympics,” Stanford said. “So I’m going through that process and it’s still exciting. I’m just going to try and do my best and see if I can make it happen. But if I can’t, I’m happy that golf is back in the Olympics.

“We play on such a world-wide tour that we, as Americans and Europeans, get to play in the Solheim Cup every two years. But I play with girls from all over the world who never get to play for their country. So I think it’s good for golf. I’m glad it’s back in the Olympics.”

That is not a consensus opinion throughout professional golf, however. Two elder statesmen in the men’s game, Vijay Singh and Miguel Angel Jimenez, recently informed the Olympic committees for their respective countries that they will not participate in Rio. Singh, 53, is from Fiji. Jimenez, 52, is from Spain.

But the highest-profile rebuff came Wednesday when Adam Scott, the No. 7 player in the men’s world golf rankings, announced he would not represent Australia because of a busy summer schedule and general indifference about the concept of Olympic golf.

In a statement, Scott said: “My decision has been taken as a result of an extremely busy playing schedule around the time of the Olympics and other commitments, both personal and professional.”

Scott, 35, has criticized the reintroduction of Olympic golf, saying last year that golf “doesn’t need to be in the Olympics” because fans watch professional tournaments with international fields on a near-weekly basis on the PGA and LPGA tours.

He characterized the Olympic competition as “an exhibition” and, with Wednesday’s announcement, made it clear that his summer focus will be on the British Open (July 14-17) and the PGA Championship (July 28-31), two majors that will be contested in a tighter-than-normal turnaround time to accommodate participants in the Olympic men’s event in Rio (Aug. 11-14).

Other PGA Tour competitors, including Dallas resident Jordan Spieth (reigning U.S. Open champion) and Jason Day (reigning PGA champ), have been outspoken about their excitement to have an Olympic opportunity they never envisioned as junior golfers. But PGA Tour locker rooms are divided on the topic, said Chris Kirk, who will defend his title at the Dean & DeLuca Invitational next month in Fort Worth.

“I’d say it’s sort of a mixed bag,” Kirk said during a recent interview at Colonial Country Club. “Some guys are really excited about it. Some guys don’t want to go. There’s really not a lot of history of golf in the Olympics. Obviously, everyone sees the Olympics as the pinnacle of sports when it comes around every four years. But how it will play out and golf’s role in the Olympics is very much a question mark right now.

“I think that if it goes well this year, people will be more on board with it in the future.”

LPGA Tour players have expressed more zeal about their Olympic opportunity, which falls comfortably between two major championships on this year’s schedule: the Women’s British Open (July 28-31) and The Evian Championship (Sept. 15-18).

Unlike their male counterparts, the women have an open date on the LPGA Tour calendar the week before the Olympics, and there is no alternate event on the schedule when the 60 female Olympians convene in Rio.

The PGA Tour, by contrast, has an event scheduled the week before the men’s competition in Rio (Travelers Championship, Aug. 4-7) as well as the John Deere Classic that overlaps the Olympic dates (Aug. 11-14).

Immediately after the Olympics, male golfers have four tournaments in the FedEx Cup playoffs (first event is Aug. 25-28, last event is Sept. 22-25). After that, top U.S. and European players head to the 2016 Ryder Cup, Sept. 30-Oct. 2.

While the crowded schedule bothers Scott, Spieth said he embraces the “crazy part of the year” that will include Olympic golf for the first time in 112 years. If he qualifies, as expected, Spieth plans to participate in the opening ceremonies and support U.S. Olympians in other sports. He called the Olympics “the most incredible sporting event in the world, by far.”

The field for both Olympic golf events is limited to 60 players, with no more than two per country. An exception is granted for countries with four or more golfers in the top 15 of the Olympic Golf Ranking list (which basically mirrors the world rankings). Qualifying countries may have up to four participants in the field.

But four is the maximum for any country, with a cutoff of July 11. At that point, the top golfers from each country in the Olympic rankings will move on to Rio.

Stanford probably needs to win a couple of events in the next 10 weeks to become part of the Olympic mix.

“I know I’ve got a mountain to climb,” Stanford said. “Like I told my caddie, ‘If anything, I can tell my kids some day that, at least I signed up for the Olympics.’ Not everybody gets to do that. It’s in the back of my mind. I’ve not given up yet.”　

This story was originally published April 23, 2016 at 4:21 PM with the headline "Angela Stanford seeks to jump-start Olympic dream at Irving event."