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 games biggest tournaments is the dream, the goal for any golfer. Those who are consistently ranked among the top 50 in the world dont have to worry about their spots in the Masters, U.S. Open, Open or PGA Championship, but the rest of the games 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. Im not 21 years old anymore. I really wanted to experience it. And I havent 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 wasnt 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 its a once in a lifetime opportunity.Van Zyls 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 golfs 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. Id like to do well and Id like to play well. Whether a medal is there at the end of the week, I just want to walk away having played nicely. Wholesale Chargers Jerseys . -- Anaheim Ducks defenceman Luca Sbisa will be out at least six weeks with a torn tendon in his right hand. Womens Chargers Jerseys . The Court of Arbitration for Sport ruling "puts an end to my dreams of being a top player," the 27-year-old Troicki said in a statement. "I worked my entire life for it, and it has been taken away from me in one afternoon by a doctor I didnt know," said Troicki, whose ranking peaked at No. http://www.cheapchargersjerseys.net/ . Uniteds eighth defeat of a wretched campaign means Liverpool, which currently occupies the fourth and final Champions League place, could go nine points clear of its fierce rival by beating West Bromwich Albion on Sunday. Charlie Adam scored both of Stokes goals at Britannia Stadium either side of Robin van Persies equalizer, with a miserable day for seventh-place United capped by first-half injuries to centre halves Jonny Evans and Phil Jones that forced them off. Black Friday Chargers Jerseys . LOUIS -- Rookie Tavon Austin has missed another day of practice, lessening the odds hell be ready for the St. Authentic Chargers Jerseys . He was followed closely by David Clarkson, donning red, seconds later. Clarksons actions one night earlier, leaping off the bench in defence of Kessel during a pre-season game against the Buffalo Sabres, will cost him the first 10 games of the regular season. In July and August, espnWs weekly essay series will focus on body image.It was Christmas break, and Kevin, two other guys and I had free reign of our high schools rink. The empty, ancient arena was a thing of beauty: the massive swath of ice, diamond-hard after a sub-zero night, and our sharp silver blades slicing it as echoes rang out under the high-beamed wooden roof.The emptiness of the rink invited long strides from one end to the other. I could race against only myself, sweating in the cold, pushing the ice from underneath my blades in circles.I was practicing my wrist shot against the boards, satisfied by the dull boom each time the puck hit the thick plastic: a proclamation of power.You know, were equal in the eyes of the school, Kevin said as he lifted the puck into the corner of the net.Hockey was less of a choice I consciously made than a birth rite. Allegedly, my first word was hockey, and by age 4 I walked around declaring that I would marry Wayne Gretzky.My dad, who was also my coach, had been a Division I goalie, and my older brother Ethan had played since childhood. Later Ethan grew to the size of a refrigerator and had a successful career as a power defenseman at the same high school I now attended.Just fall on the puck! hed tell me when I was 6 years old, strung up in goalie pads while he and his friends took shots. I idolized Ethan and was happy to be included, tennis balls whipping past my face.?Id been on skates for the first time at age 2, but gaps in my training had prohibited developing formidable skill. My shot wasnt strong enough, and my aim was not accurate. I couldnt maneuver past my opponents to the goal. I was a good skater, but couldnt nimbly dance around a huge defender. I loved being on the ice, and in high school the rink became my second home.Kevins ironic assertion of our equality, while he was clearly athletically superior to me, was a typical exchange of gender relations at our high school. I rolled my eyes at him, used to it. We were both members of our schools varsity hockey teams, but I understood that he meant to make clear that I was a guest in a realm that belonged to him.Our school itself had transitioned from all-boys to coed only the September before my freshman year, and female students were struggling to find a place and identity on campus. Wed commit ourselves fully to the court, field or ice, all grit and sweat.Then wed buy new dresses and lip gloss for school dances, hoping to be adored, or at least hoping to appease, an attempt to gain power in this nation of boys where our citizenship was tenuous.At my high school, girls with exceeding athletic talent werent an anomaly. Prowesss on the field, court, or ice was more of a standard we all tried to live up to.dddddddddddd. The field hockey and lacrosse players, who traipsed around their fields tanned, in mascara and skirts, their ponytails bouncing, were lusted after.Hockey was different.Even more so than football, the cold night games of the Boys Varsity Hockey team in the outdoor rink, with the crunch of helmets, pads and bones against the plexiglass boards drew roars from a devoted crowd of students, mostly boys who wished they were on the roster.The girls games, in general, were quieter affairs. Our first season began my junior year. We were covered from head to toe in thick padding, skating out onto unchartered territory.Theres no checking, or pinning someone against the boards in womens hockey, so the rabid fans of fights and falls tend to consider it boring, and dismiss the game as a pale imitation rather than a distinct athletic endeavor.For girls to interlope in the schools most sacred athletic ritual was taken as heresy by some of the sports male fans: we were treading on territory explicitly marked for and by them.Previous to having our own team, girls at my high school who wanted to play hockey were shuffled onto the junior varsity B team, which also became home to the boys who were cut from junior varsity. A.During games, our opponents would spot our ponytails and stride straight toward us. We were smaller, easy targets apparently deserving of a check against the boards.?It was as if they were asking You wanna play hockey? Here it is, as they pinned us against the glass.The guys on our team, themselves full of shame for having to play with the girls at all, would be suddenly roused to come to our defense, chasing the offender down and serving it right back to them.Hanging with Kevin and the guys over Christmas break gave me hope: maybe I could be tough, and taken seriously, maybe I could be a person to them, and not just a girl, vulnerable at every turn to a critique of my appearance.I remembered the warning from one of my beloved teen magazines that cautioned against playing sports with boys: You dont want them to see you as one of the guys.Still, whenever I can, I lace up a pair of skates. Its best at night, when the rink is empty, and the ice becomes a thread that runs through the needles of my skates, and the motion is so seamless that the ice and I are moving as one.Emily May is a writer and artist based in Boston, Massachusetts. She is currently at work on a book of essays. 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