If you are a golf enthusiast who wasn’t in Paris for the XXXlll Olympiad this is a question you might want to ask: How was the stroke-play golf tournament different from stroke-play events on tours around the world?
In many ways it wasn’t. It was a 72-hole event and the leaderboard contained many of the best names in men’s professional golf. Scottie Scheffler of the U.S. won it, as he has done in six other golf events, including the Masters and the Players Championship, this year, thus emphasizing his status as the world’s No. 1 male player.
It was held at Le Golf National, where thousands had watched Europe win the Ryder Cup in 2018 and that testing course near Versailles has staged the French Open every year, bar one, since 1991.
And the standard of golf was exceptional, in part thanks to the course set-up by Kerry Haigh, who does the same job for the PGA of America at its major championship. Scheffler’s last round, a 62, equalled the course record and took him to 19-under par, two strokes lower than the previous best.
But there were differences. The competitors were playing for medals not money, a rare if not unique experience for many professionals. They were representing and competing for their countries as well as themselves, which added its own pressure.
“It’s definitely elevated compared to a regular event,” Jon Rahm said on Saturday. “It might have been new in golf but it is the Olympics. I think the crowd knows it is and we are well aware of what is at stake.”
Was Rahm’s collapse over his inward nine holes on Sunday due in any way to the pressure of a team event? “Spain, they are very passionate people towards their own country,” Rahm said. “They usually travel well for big sporting events. … There’s a lot bigger presence than I expected. They usually, obviously, wear the flag colours, which are visible from any distance and they tend to be about the loudest on the course, as well, no matter where I am and it really helps out.”
Tommy Fleetwood knows Le Golf National well, having won the 2017 French Open there and four out of five points in the Ryder Cup in 2018. “It brings its own mental challenges, its own nerves and excitement and it’s very, very special. You’re playing for a medal,” he said on the eve of the event.
For Fleetwood there was much more to it than that. On Monday night he heard that three children under the age of 9 had been murdered by a 17-year-old using a knife at a Taylor Swift dance class in Southport, England, the town where he had been born and grew up. This prompted fierce civil unrest led by those who believed that a Muslem was behind the attacks and anti-Muslem rioting took place in Southport and in seven other cities in England and Northern Ireland last week. By the weekend 4,000 extra police were on standby duty to prevent further rioting.
“Obviously I still have friends and family in Southport,” Fleetwood said. “The majority of my family actually are still there. My dad’s still there and then a lot of cousins from my mum’s side. Like I say, everybody feels the effects of something like that. … Kind of never expect it to happen but especially in, like, a little town like Southport. All we can do now is try and move forward and make the best of it and do what we can for the ones that have been affected, really. So yeah, I think everybody just wants to get the town back to a good feeling, really, because at the moment, it’s pretty difficult.”
The sounds heard at an Olympic golf event are the same as elsewhere – loud applause rolling over a golf course, “Ooohs” and”Aaahs,” too. Attendances rival those of regular events. There were 28,000 at the first day. And then there are the clothes and the colours of an Olympic golf tournament.
Down the years, golfers from Jimmy Demaret to Max Faulkner and Doug Sanders to Payne Stewart stood out for their dress sense as much as their golf skills. Indeed Stewart was so brightly dressed on the last day of the 1990 Open Championship at St Andrews, at which he would eventually finish in a tie for second place with Mark McNulty, that a Scottish golf writer noted in his paper the next day: “Stewart set off down the 1st hole on the Old Course dressed as if for burial at sea.”
Golf is colourful but rarely have so many competitors made it quite so colourful as in Paris. Shrieking reds, powerful yellows, vibrant greens. Subtle blobs of blue and green.
Rahm’s red cap stamped with the word “ESPAÑA” and matching shirt with a blob of yellow on the back could hardly have stood out more. Rory McIlroy sported a green shirt and white trousers and the orange of Ireland was visible around the soles and heels of his golf shoes. Scottie Scheffler and Xander Schauffele could not have worn more red white and blue.
France’s Victor Perez was clad in whites that looked as though they had been borrowed from an England cricketer but acknowledged France’s other colours with vertical red and blue stripes down the side of his shirt and a blue “FRANCE” cap. Nobody touched Jason Day, who rocked Australia’s national colours: yellow shirt, green trousers, below a green and yellow visor.
At an Olympics, you discover things you don’t discover at tour events.
Did you know that McIlroy loves the equestrian event known as dressage? Scheffler thought he was good at table tennis until he saw some of the competitors in the table tennis tournament. Tom Kim, 22, would have been spared mandatory national military service at home in South Korea if he had won a medal.
Most of all, it was refreshing to see men, so successful in their own sport, walk around wide-eyed at meeting so many world-class athletes from other sports who are as good at their sports as the golfers are at theirs.
At the end of a tumultuous week, Fleetwood left the 72nd green and walked up the path towards the scorers’ area to loud applause. He had a smile on his face. He hadn’t won a gold medal, so he had not beaten every other single competitor. But in his second appearance at the quadrennial event he had done the next best thing and won a silver medal and that had brought Great Britain further success in the medals table.
“I kind of look at things through the eyes of Frankie, my son, at 6 years old,” Fleetwood said earlier in the week. “If I had a gold medal he would always take it when I’ve gone and I would think what an unbelievably special thing to have. I think being able to be part of, or one of, these unbelievable athletes that put their heart and soul into their chosen craft and a gold medal is the absolute pinnacle of what they do – I have an unbelievable respect for that and understand how special it is and how much it means. But still a … medal would be something I would be very proud of.”
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Top: Scottie Scheffler winning isn't unusual, but winning gold at the Olympics is certainly different.
Tracy Wilcox, PGA TOUR/IGF