The major professional tours will hit the “pause” button during the next two weeks – the men this week, and the women next week – as golf makes way for the Olympic Games.
Last week, during the opening ceremony along the River Seine in Paris, golfers Shane Lowry (Ireland), Fabrizio Zanotti (Paraguay) and Ines Laklalech (Morocco) were honored by carrying the flag for their respective nations. The men’s 72-hole event begins Thursday at Le Golf National in Guyancourt, west of Paris, followed by the women’s event on August 7-10 at the same site.
Rory McIlroy has won just about everything that can be claimed in golf, except for a Masters green jacket and an Olympic medal (gold, silver or bronze). He can’t do anything about the Masters until April rolls around, but the four-time major champion from Northern Ireland, a hard-luck runner-up in last month’s U.S. Open, is eager to cross an Olympic medal off his to-do list while playing for a combined Ireland team.
McIlroy, who was denied a medal when he lost a seven-man playoff for the third-place bronze at the pandemic-delayed Tokyo Games in 2021, said “I never tried so hard in my life to finish third.”
That was quite a change of heart for McIlroy, who couldn’t have been less interested in the 2016 Olympics, which represented golf’s return to the games after a 112-year absence. He’s all in now, though, after conceding that his stance before the Rio de Janeiro Games was “uneducated and impulsive.” After having experienced the hoopla in Tokyo, he said: “That sort of Olympic spirit’s definitely bitten me.”
With four of the top six players in the Official World Golf Ranking having qualified for the Paris Games, the U.S. will be a heavy favorite to have one or more players standing atop the medal stand on Sunday evening. The Americans are the only team with more than two players competing in a 60-man tournament: world No. 1 Scottie Scheffler, a six-time winner on the PGA Tour this season; No. 2 Xander Schauffele, who is the defending gold medalist and recent winner of the Open Championship; No. 5 Wyndham Clark and No. 6 Collin Morikawa. READ MORE and MORE
Mark Carnevale, a former PGA Tour winner who spent the past two decades as a reporter on tour broadcasts for SiriusXM PGA Tour Radio, died July 22. He was 64. No cause of death was disclosed.
As a PGA Tour rookie at age 32, Carnevale won the 1992 Chattanooga Classic and was named the rookie of the year, highlighting a career that included 212 starts. He briefly served as tournament director of the Virginia Beach Open on the former Nationwide Tour before shifting into a media role that included work with PGA Tour Live, ESPN+ and since 2005 with SiriusXM. He most recently worked three weeks ago as a walking reporter at the Genesis Scottish Open and was supposed to have covered last week’s 3M Open in Minnesota.
“Mark knew the game and did a terrific job of conveying insights from his unique point of view – and with an engaging wit and sense of humor – to fans from countless tour events through the years,” commissioner Jay Monahan said.
Greg Hopfe, who heads the PGA Tour Entertainment division, called Carnevale “a consummate professional” who was “an integral part of live coverage on our streaming platforms and PGA Tour Radio coverage.” READ MORE
The ISCO Championship, which was played opposite the Genesis Scottish Open and co-sanctioned by the PGA and DP World tours, will return to Kentucky next year but at a new site. Hurstbourne Country Club in Louisville will serve as the host in 2025, the PGA Tour announced. The ISCO debuted in 2015 as the Barbasol Championship at the Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail in Opelika, Alabama, and moved to Keene Trace in Nicholasville, Kentucky, in 2018. READ MORE
Matt McCarty and Taylor Dickson have clinched promotions to the PGA Tour next year. McCarty won the Korn Ferry Tour’s recent Price Cutter Charity Championship while Dickson tied for third at the event in Springfield, Missouri. READ MORE and MORE
TAP-INS
Australian Marc Leishman withdrew from the LIV Golf UK tournament after a first-round 2-under 69 at JCB Golf and Country Club in Rocester, England, before undergoing emergency surgery to have his appendix removed, he disclosed via social media. “I came to England with an appendix and will leave without it!” he wrote. “Appendicitis is no joke.” READ MORE
The Asian Tour completed its 2024 schedule with the announcement of two consecutive $2 million International Series tournaments to be played in Thailand. The Black Mountain Championship will be played October 17-20 at Black Mountain Golf Club in Hua Hin, followed by the International Series Thailand on October 24-27 at Thai Country Club in Hom Sin. The tour’s 10 International Series events provide a pathway to the LIV Golf. READ MORE
German teen Helen Briem, who won three consecutive starts last month on the LET Access Series and rose to No. 1 in the Women’s World Amateur Golf Ranking, has turned professional. Briem, 18, of Nürtingen, won the 2023 R&A Girls’ Amateur and this year’s Portuguese Women’s Amateur and has competed on numerous international teams representing Germany and Europe. Before her unprecedented string of victories on the LET’s feeder circuit, she finished runner-up via playoff to Perrine Delacour in the LET’s Dormy Open on June 2. READ MORE
Webb Simpson has been named as the first assistant captain on Keegan Bradley’s U.S. staff for the 2025 Ryder Cup, the PGA of America announced. Simpson, 38, whose seven PGA Tour victories include the 2012 U.S. Open, played on three U.S. Ryder Cup teams – in 2012, 2014 and 2018, all losses – and compiled a 4-4-1 record in the biennial matches. READ MORE
Sunningdale Golf Club’s Old Course in Ascot, England, will host the 2025 British Senior Open, Europe’s Legends Tour announced. The tournament, which dates to 1987, has been staged three times at Sunningdale: 1987 (won by Loren Roberts), 2015 (Marco Dawson) and 2021 (Stephen Dodd). READ MORE
Compiled by Steve Harmon