Dewi Weber should have been on her way to Paris this week, but her own country didn’t think she was good enough.
So far this week, she’s proving them very wrong.
Weber was one of three Dutch golfers who qualified for the Olympics via Official World Golf Rankings and Rolex Rankings, but the Netherlands Olympic Committee declined to send them to the Paris Games, citing extra qualifying rules.
The federation claimed that Weber, Joost Luiten and Darius van Driel had “no reasonable chance of a top 8 ranking in the Olympic Games” because neither were ranked in the top 100 in the world or had earned a high enough finish in a sanctioned tournament in the lead up to the games. This is despite every other country using the agreed-upon qualification system of taking the top two ranked golfers from each country and up to four if they were all ranked in the top 15.
Instead, the federation sent just five-time Ladies European Tour winner and 113th-ranked golfer Anne Van Dam.
After qualifying for Olympics, golfers are snubbed. The explanation is baffling
But this week, in the LPGA’s Portland Classic, Weber is showing how wrong those extra rules were for golf.
The world’s 336th-ranked golfer is the best player in the field through two rounds at Columbia Edgewater after a sparkling, bogey-free 62 Friday in the second round. At 16 under, she holds a two-shot lead over Andrea Lee. She’s three ahead of India’s Aditi Ashok, who is in the field for next week’s Olympic Women’s competition, which begins Wednesday at Le Golf National.
Weber was quick not to get ahead of herself but was candid that the Olympic snub was still on her mind.
“We’re two rounds in, so we’ll see how this all unfolds and if I can really make a statement,” she said. “Of course it’s in the back of my mind because it’s the week before the Olympics. It was something that I was looking forward to, that — again, like it happened; I did what I could to let it not happen; I did not succeed.
“Some guys try even harder than I did and also ended up not succeeding. It sucks, but all we can do is like try to prove why those standards were so silly, and I really hope to do that on Sunday.”
Later in a postround press conference, Weber doubled down on her goal this week.
“I can tell you that, yeah, I’m trying to make a statement here,” she said. “I’m just trying to play golf. Just trying to play an LPGA event and place as well as I can.”
This is just Weber’s second LPGA start this season after she came in a tie for 52nd at the ShopRite LPGA Classic in June. She’s been playing primarily on the Epson Tour, where she has four top-10s and is 20th in the Race for the Card this season.
She was barred from the Olympics. Now she’s out to make a ‘statement’
With several players skipping this week to travel to Paris early, like defending gold and bronze medalists Nelly Korda and Lyda Ko, Weber earned entry into this week’s event from deep down the LPGA priority ranking.
But the Olympic snub has lit a fire under her for motivation. Not that she should be in Paris. She realizes that it’s a done deal — Luiten even sued the Netherlands Olympic Committee, won but still couldn’t get into the games because his spot was filled already.
She’s using the motivation to prove she belongs on the LPGA Tour full-time.
“I’m disappointed obviously, but it’s a chapter that for me I’ve closed,” Weber said. “Listen, if I win on Sunday, like I think that would make a statement obviously, but it’s not as if I’m trying to play here to make a point.
“The point I’m trying to make is that I’m a good golfer and good enough to be on the LPGA Tour, because I’ve been on Epson this entire year. So that’s more the point I’m trying to make I guess for myself, than, see, look, I should’ve been at the Olympics.”
