A Few Fun Final Olympic Golf Course Preview Stories & Visuals

As we have arrived at week one of Olympic golf in Rio, a few final course and Games-related content pieces are worth a look.

John Clarke of the New York Times wrote last month about the Zeon Zoysia making its international debut this week. It started from a small amount transported on an airplane by David Doguet, owner of Bladerunner Farms and is a promising turfgrass going forward for certain regions of the world looking for faster, firmer and tougher turf.

Zeon Zoysia requires less water, fertilizer, nitrogen and pesticide than most other types of golf turf, Doguet said. Perhaps most important, he said, it can endure Rio’s poor soil and water quality and meets the strict environmental regulations that prohibit the use of chemical fertilizers and weed killers on the course, which is on a nature preserve.

The story also includes a couple of slideshows worth checking out.

Gil Hanse has posted a guest course review at GolfNow!

Golf Digest writers discuss their visit to Rio and impressions of the course. Esquire's David Granger is also in the mix, and the aerials are fun to watch as well:

They also provided this quick preview video of golf's (quick) Olympic history.

Best of all is this 360 degree tour of the property and course, which will, for those viewing this week, give a great sense of where the holes sit. Gil Hanse narrates.

And Quartz has put together these DigitalGlobe sequential aerial shots of multiple venues, including Olympic Park, beach volleyball and the golf course in all stages. Really fun stuff if you've been watching the Games.

Click on the link above to see the transformation in action, this is just the final overhead: