For Olympic golfers, there’s 1 query nobody can reply

SAINT-QUENTIN-EN-YVELINES, France — That trophy Xander Schauffele performed for two weeks in the past on the Open Championship — everyone knows it. The Claret Jug, handed out to the Champion Golfer of the 12 months. He holds it for a 12 months and delivers it again to the R&A subsequent July. Within the meantime, he’s taken numerous photographs with it, smoked cigars whereas cradling it, and drank crimson wine out of it similar to he promised. He additionally drank tequila from it, hoping the agave spirit may sterilize the silver innards of one of the best chalice within the recreation. 

To the victor go these kinda spoils — and Schauffele is much from the primary to prioritize imbibing after a win. He gained’t be the final. The purpose right here is, you knew all that was coming. Perhaps not the tequila, however the remainder of it. We knew the figurative prizes Schauffele was enjoying for, too. Legacy, historical past, and so on. The truth that 233 gamers have gained a serious, however solely 89 have gained two. Everybody in golf is aware of that issues. We’ve agreed upon its significance. The gamers, the caddies, each previous Open Champion who’s nonetheless kicking round within the recreation — even you. 

What we are able to’t fairly appear to agree upon is what everyone seems to be enjoying for this week. There’s no disputing that the Olympics is definitely value one thing, however what’s it value, precisely? The place does profitable a Gold Medal rank on the checklist of profession accomplishments? How a few bronze? This query has change into so frequent that it induces eye-rolls recently. Rory McIlroy has been requested about it advert nauseam. Months in the past, and on the Scottish Open, and on the Open Championship after which right here, at Le Golf Nationwide, on Tuesday morning. The reply is usually unchanged. 

“I’ve been requested this query quite a bit,” McIlroy mentioned, “the place would an Olympic Medal sit in form of the hierarchy of my profession achievements? And it’s one thing I in all probability gained’t be capable to reply till when all the things is alleged and achieved.”

It was a protected reply, but additionally in all probability the suitable one. Within the days of bite-size consideration spans and the what-have-you-done-for-me-lately Web discourse, it’s tough to construct significance when an occasion arrives on the schedule as soon as each 4 years. 

Golf may have loved a long time of Olympic historical past by now, because it was presupposed to rejoin the Video games in 1996, however ran right into a political mess when it was broadly revealed that the supposed host — Augusta Nationwide — maintained extraordinarily unique membership practices. Learn: zero feminine members and only one Black member on the time. 

As an alternative, golf on the Olympics didn’t start once more till 2016 in Brazil, the place the sector battled fears over the Zika virus. The game pushed ahead in 2020 earlier than the whole lot of the Video games had been postponed by the Covid-19 pandemic. When it was staged a 12 months later in Tokyo, quite a few gamers had both bailed from the concept or contracted Covid themselves, making them ineligible. 

Little or no about golf on the Olympics has been orderly. And, we usually take pleasure in quite a lot of order on this sport. We’re working to get extra of it, too. The Signature Occasions are the sport’s greatest assortment of expertise, exterior of the majors. Successful them is very large, and profitable elsewhere is necessary, however profitable a serious is all the things. Might a Gold Medal evaluate? 

“I’ve bought this query quite a bit,” Jon Rahm mentioned, “and I feel that’s an important query for Xander Schauffele since he’s the one man lately to have achieved each.”

Truthful level. Let’s ask the person.

“It’s a good query nevertheless it’s tough,” Schauffele started. “Golf was within the Olympics after which it was out of the Olympics. So I feel quite a lot of the children had been watching Tiger, or in case you’re a bit of bit older, you’re watching Jack or Arnie, the older legends of the sport. You’re watching them win majors.

“It’s type of totally different. For me it’s very private. My relationship with my dad, the connection my dad and I’ve with golf — quite a lot of it form of surrounds his teachings of when he was attempting to be an Olympian.

“The majors are form of what I grew up watching. They’re two very various things to me. I feel the Gold Medal, it’s been marinating properly. Perhaps in 30, 40 years, it’s one thing that’s actually going to be particular because it will get extra traction and it type of will get again into the eyes or into the normalcy of being within the Olympics.”

There’s two issues in there. Marinating, and private. Olympic golf must marinate. To soak, over time, and see what tales the competitors creates. A part of that’s that’s the second little bit of Schauffele’s response. The Olympics, with its pomp, its nationalism, its individualism, is solely extra private than it’s historic. That’s one thing we’ve in all probability realized the previous few days. 

Rahm was at his wit’s finish in 2021, the clear greatest participant on the planet who texted destructive for Covid-19 4 or 5 instances, solely to have one optimistic check preserve him from competing. He felt like one thing was taken from him. Jason Day had an opportunity to compete in 2016 however handed up the chance, and now he regrets it. He spent a part of his Monday watching the ladies’s judo competitors, awe-struck on the feelings of athletes on the finish of four-year journey.

“To observe an athlete undergo that emotion of attempting to beat a loss or overcome profitable for the primary time, profitable a medal for the primary time, may be very inspiring to observe,” Day mentioned. “So it positively has modified the way in which that I view golf within the Olympics, and that’s why I’m very grateful for the chance to have the ability to compete right here this week.”

J-Day wasn’t within the Olympics eight years in the past. Now he’s hopeful to play in 2028, in Los Angeles, and is already enthusiastic about 2032, again in Oz. He’d be 44 then. Rory McIlroy wasn’t within the Olympics eight years in the past, both. Now, he sees it as an opportunity to stamp not simply his season, however for the final 10 years of main championships which have evaded his grasp.

Clearly, golf on the Olympics means various things to totally different folks. That will trouble some who need to notarize its place within the recreation earlier than any photographs hit the sky, however beg of them some endurance. And ship them the phrases of younger, strapping, ball-speed aficionado Nicolai Hojgaard. The Dane is simply 23, which might have made him a third-grader when his sport of selection was added again to the Olympic constitution. In different phrases, the concept of golf as an Olympic sport isn’t so international to him. And it has him geeking out.

“I’m getting goosebumps enthusiastic about it as a result of placing on the nationwide shirt is a very particular feeling,” he mentioned. “I’ve had it in my novice days representing Denmark and Euros and World Cup and all that, and it was a few of my greatest expertise in golf.

“To have that feeling now and that dream of getting a medal and getting again house, I can’t even consider how the reception might be in Denmark. Hopefully that might be one thing that transforms golf a bit of bit.”

It might be simply the factor.