A DARK cloud lingered over golf’s inclusion in the Olympics for the first time in 112 years, yet Hampshire’s Justin Rose has partly helped waft the ill-feelings away.

When many of the best golfers in the world withdrew from playing at the Olympics because of the worry over the Zika virus, which has been linked to defects in newborn babies, it caused much embarrassment and many a furrowed brow.

World number four Rory McIlroy said in a statement that "my health and my family's health comes before everything else", while number one, two and three Jason Day and Dustin Johnson and Jordan Spieth also pulled the plug on their intended trip to Rio for the same reasons.

If all that wasn’t enough, Northern Irishman McIlroy then launched an attack on the inclusion of golf at the Rio games, stating that he might not even watch it and instead tune in to see “events like track and field, swimming, diving, the stuff that matters.”

But Rosy by name and Rosy by nature, the county’s golfing star finally brought some much-needed positivity back into the picture by announcing that he’d love to become an Olympic champion.

Rose, who was born in South Africa but brought up in Fleet, said: “Being part of Team GB, which is going to be about 350 athletes, is something to behold and something to be proud of.

“If I was to fast forward 10 years, I’d like my career to read: ‘Justin Rose, multiple major champion and Olympic gold medallist.’ “It’s going to be right there alongside the major championships but not compared to. I just think it has its own category. It’s once every four years. It’s unique. It’s very different. It’s very special.”

The 2013 US Open champion’s backing of the competition has gone someway to putting in the past a period of gloom over the competition.