Gold for Jamie Spence after a turn as Team GB Olympic golf leader

The 2016 Rio Olympics were a huge success for Team GB and for the first time in 112 years, golf made a return to the Games.

To really put the cherry on the cake of the return of this wonderful sport to Olympic greatness, Justin Rose won gold for Team GB. Sadly for Jamie Spence, who was the golf team leader for the successful GB team at the Olympics, he didn’t personally win an Olympic medal. But that didn’t mean his medal collection took a hit - he did receive a gold medal thanks to the Sky Sports Golf Team.

The Sky team wanted to reward the hard working captain for his sterling effort, with a medal of his own - albeit a chocolate one!

The two-time European Tour winner from Kent was chosen as the team’s leader thanks to his 20 year long career in golf, as well as his further work with the European team for the last two Ryder cups. On top of this, he has experience as the Chairman of the Players’ Tournament Committee on the European Tour for three years. Spence is shadowing the current chairman, Thomas Bjorn of the European Tour, as a Director of Player Relations.

He also finds time to coach fellow professional golfers and is a course commentator for the ETP as well as being a studio analyst for Sky Television. Hamish Grey, the Chairman for the BGA and Scottish Union CEO, expressed how Jamie had the right skills for the job, including being very well organised, being an extremely good communicator and using his proven leadership skills.

These skills shone through at the Rio Olympics, as he helped lead Justin Rose to victory and gold for GB after over a century where the sport has been missing from the Games. It will be great to see where Jamie Spence can go from here - let’s hope we see him helping many more GB golfing talents to winning greatness.