An Olympic Size Growth
The Olympic golf tournament entered this week with a serious lack of juice. I wrote about this in my previous blog, but the tournament had yet to create an identity, which is largely due to the lack of iconic moments, and legendary golfers who have played. In 2016, for example, many of the top Americans didn’t play and the tournament was ultimately won by Justin Rose, a great golfer, but by no means a needle mover. It was much of the same in 2021 with Xander Schauffele, Rory Sabbatini, and C.T. Pan medalling in the middle of the night Eastern time. Coming off two underwhelming tournaments and not optimal viewing hours for Americans, there was no reason to get super psyched up for this event. However, in just four days, the status of this tournament skyrocketed which can be seen through examining several players.
I said in my preview that this tournament needed a great champion and no better player than the guy who has been playing the best golf we’ve seen since Tiger Woods. Standing on the 14th tee Scottie Scheffler had a 0.4% chance of winning per data golf but birdies on 14, 15, and an all-world one on 17 got Scheffler to -19 where he finished the tournament atop. Scheffler has gained a reputation for winning dominantly (both Masters and last year's Players at the forefront) but this was Scottie’s second miraculous comeback of the year along with the Players. What made this win so special was not only the dramatic fashion in which he did it but the emotion he showed. Scheffler let out a roar when he drained a 20-foot birdie putt on 17, emotion from him that hasn’t been seen aside from his eagle on 13 at Augusta on Saturday this year. Scottie was then brought to tears in the ceremony afterward. This event needed to prove it meant something, and what better way than seeing the best player in the world get teared up over winning an event that earned him $37,000 as opposed to the typical $3 million he makes.
With the top of the leaderboard littered with top-ten talent, Victor Perez, the 70th-ranked golfer in the world seemed a bit out of place. But through all of the fireworks Scheffler, McIlroy, Fleetwood, and others provided, nothing came close to the shockwaves Victor Perez sent around the course on the back nine. And that’s because there is nothing like playing an Olympic event in front of your country (see also: Leon Marchand’s races). Fans will root for their fellow countrymen as if they had been their favorite athlete for years. And that’s a part of its identity that Olympic Golf revealed today: in no other golf tournament will fans root for a single player, as unanimously and passionately, as they do during Olympic golf. With the 2028 games taking place in the United States, the American fans will have the opportunity to build off this momentum.
It had been a disappointing year for Jon Rahm to date, but with a four-stroke lead standing on the 11th tee, he had a chance to salvage the year with a gold medal. Back-to-back bogeys dropped him into a tie with Fleetwood, and Rahm would continue his spiral downward, shooting a back-nine 39 which caused him to miss out on the podium entirely. In a post-round interview, Rahm cited this choke as “something that is going to sting for a while” and that it “hurts more than [he] expected.” Similar to how Scheffler’s celebrations revealed how much it meant to win this tournament, Rahm's clear anguish over the finish displayed how disappointing it was to lose. Additionally, many of the big chokes in golf typically come during major championships because the pressure is at an all-time high. That’s also to say, you don’t typically see players shooting +4 on the back nine of the John Deere Classic with a lead. So for Rahm to shoot +4 on the back nine of a course that was playing very easily, does go towards building the significance of this tournament.
Olympic Golf is still far from a finished product. There needs to be some sort of team aspect included. Just like how swimming and track have individual and team medals handed out, golf should have that too. Right now, the medal is awarded to the country that had the best single golfer in a 72-hole stroke play event. There needs to be a separate or attached tournament that determines the best golfing nation.
