Rio 2016 Golf Course in Jeopardy after Legal Dispute Found on Land

The land designated for the Rio de Janeiro 2016 Olympic golf course is in the centre of a legal dispute putting the first Olympic golf tournament in 112 years in jeopardy.

A report by CNN on the Riserva Uno location where a new course will be developed revealed that there is a legal dispute over the land.

Luiz Ernesto Magalhães, Brazilian newspaper O Globo, said: “Right now the property is being presented by a group claiming to be the owner of this land. Official documents show the land belongs to this group, but there have been disputes, other parties are now claiming rights to this land.”

In 2009 the International Olympic Committee (IOC) decided that the sport could return to the Olympic programme after more than 100 years since it was last played at a Summer Games.

The  Royal & Ancient, golf’s governing body, announced in July that the Riserva Uno site would be the location for the sport’s Olympic comeback.

The new course could provide a huge boost to Brazilian gold, as Paulo Pacheco, vice President of the Brazilian Golf Confederation, told CNN: “In Brazil there are 25,000 players and we think after the Olympic Games we can increase this, more than doubling it in ten years.”

A number of notable golfing figures including Jack Nicklaus and Greg Norman are in the running to design the course, and the multi-millionaires have agreed to waive the course design fees they would be owed in exchange for the prestigious honour.

Nick Faldo has also come up with an innovative plan for 18 major champions to design a hole each, but work needs to begin next year on the course for it to be ready in time for a scheduled test run in 2015.