Zeon Zoysia first appeared on American courses in 2001. Most recently, Tiger Woods used it on Bluejack National, his first course in the United States, outside Houston. Trinity Forest Golf Course, a new site in Dallas that will host the Byron Nelson PGA tournament in 2019, also features Zeon Zoysia.

A lush Olympic golf course that is able to survive Rio’s harsh environment, looks good and plays great could provide much needed relief to the sport. Golf’s bumpy return to the Olympics has been marked by the withdrawals of top male players, who have cited tight tour schedules and concerns over security and the Zika virus, a mosquito-borne illness linked to birth defects.

Olympic golf took another hit at the British Open this month when Rory McIlroy told reporters that he would not watch it on television, instead preferring track and field, swimming and diving.

Adding to the shaky start is the decline in interest in golf since Tiger Woods’s boom years. According to the National Golf Foundation, the number of people who had played at least one round of golf dropped to 24.1 million in 2015 from a high of 30 million in 2000, the year Woods won three majors. Television ratings, club memberships, equipment sales and course construction are also down.

“I won’t say they’re prima donnas, but we have very high-value players that choose to not attend for various reasons, which will obviously affect some, but not people here in Rio,” said Neil Cleverly, Rio’s Olympic golf course superintendent. “They don’t know Rory McIlroy or Jordan Spieth from Father Christmas. Organizers put this together under the auspices that these guys are playing, and then they don’t come.

“Why, because of Zika or security? You could be shot in downtown Chicago or run over in Florida just as easily.”