Lacking medals, podium tears, brutal commutes

SAINT-QUENTIN-EN-YVELINES, France — It felt bizarre displaying as much as Le Golf Nationwide Monday, about 15 hours after Scottie Scheffler stood atop the medal stand. The property was quiet, almost empty, and final we had seen it, it was raucous. Really chaotic. 

Chaotic in sense, in fact. “I’ve by no means seen something prefer it,” Azahara Munoz mentioned Monday. (That’s proper, the women have the mic now.) Munoz and her Spanish teammate, Carlotta Ciganda, arrived Saturday and walked the course with their fellow Spaniard Jon Rahm, who on the time was in competition. However on Sunday, with much more followers and the medal chase within the steadiness, sight traces turned sparse. The 5-foot-5 Munoz couldn’t see something. 

“I’ve by no means been in a males’s occasion when it’s this large,” she mentioned. “So I ended up really going inside and watching it on TV as a result of I couldn’t get shut and I couldn’t see something.

“However a minimum of it was nice to be outdoors and seeing the ambiance, and, yeah, it undoubtedly give me chills. I’ve actually by no means skilled something prefer it. It was superb.”

A lot of the girls’s subject was kicking round on-site Sunday, both on the observe facility or enjoying the entrance 9 as the lads completed on the again. We’ve acquired simply two days of observe rounds (and one is already executed), so excellent news: Golf on the Olympics will return shortly. 

Within the meantime, listed here are 6 ideas on what we’ve seen, and what’s left to come back. 

1. Scottie’s definition of stress-free

Maybe what amazes me most about Scottie Scheffler is just not how expert he’s, however how calm he appears below strain. It seems like each professional battles nerves to some extent, however Scheffler appears to evade them. Perhaps that’s as a result of whereas he’s on the course, he nonetheless holds some management over the end result.

On Sunday evening, with the Gold Medal hanging from his neck, Scheffler mentioned it’s the moments down on the vary, when a spherical is full and a possible playoff is within the steadiness, that he can really feel probably the most nervous. As a result of he can’t have an effect on the end result at that time. He wants to remain heat and calm down.

My solely query is about his music alternative. When Scheffler hit wedge after wedge Sunday night, hoping to waste away the time, he determined to play U2’s “Lovely Day” on his telephone. He mentioned he was attempting to calm down, however doing so with that upbeat, inspiring pop-rock music doesn’t fairly equate for me. Would like to know what else is on the Potential Playoff Playlist.

2. Identical course, completely different method 

Many phrases can be utilized to explain the variations between the lads’s and ladies’s recreation — be ready to listen to a few of them this week. The peak of the ball flight, the spin, the trajectory, membership decisions, and so forth. However France’s Celine Boutier wrapped it up neatly in two phrases: stopping energy.

For some cause, these phrases struck me. Perhaps as a result of execs don’t actually use them, as an alternative getting tied up within the esoteric language that defines the sport. Launch angles, spin charges, ball speeds, and so forth. It’s simply stopping energy. That’s all it’s. Easy concept.

“You’ll be able to’t actually count on us, me personally, to play the identical manner [as the men],” she mentioned Monday.

Nonetheless, that the identical course is internet hosting a girls’s occasion every week after a males’s — we are able to’t assist however marvel how in a different way (or equally) issues will go. And early indicators are that Le Golf Nationwide will play fairly a bit harder for the women. The course is lush, the greens firmed up via the lads’s comp, the tough thick — you gained’t see girls hitting 8-irons from the lengthy stuff onto the inexperienced and getting it to cease like Scheffler did Sunday. 

One former males’s professional, who has caddied a bunch on the LPGA, informed me that one thing within the eight-under vary shall be a implausible week for the ladies. 

3. Podium tears are nothing new, however they’re telling!

Scottie Scheffler couldn’t put together for the feelings he felt because the American flag was being raised and nationwide anthem was performed throughout his medal ceremony. However because the anthem reached “O’er the land of the free…”, Scheffler started to cry. You’ve in all probability seen the photographs by now.

One thing comparable occurred in 2021 to Nelly Korda, who took her first 18-hole loop round Le Golf Nationwide Monday after which popped in for a press convention. 

“As a child, I watched so many athletes and all their uncooked feelings on that podium when their flag goes up and the Nationwide Anthem,” Korda mentioned. “And after I lastly acquired to do it myself, there was an enormous rush of feelings that undergo me. I had a pair tears roll down my face. It mentioned on my WHOOP that was the best my coronary heart [rate] was all day was really on the rostrum.”

So enjoying in competition, squeaking by Mone Inami and Lydia Ko, grinding to carry on to the highest spot, that wasn’t probably the most nerve-wracking a part of her day. It was was when all eyes had been on her on the rostrum. That’s attention-grabbing!

4. LGN’s brutal 18th will get … extra thrilling? 

A lot was product of the ending gap at Le Golf Nationwide and the way troublesome it performed for the lads. No different gap on the property was even shut in relation to stroke common over par. Medals had been gained and misplaced there, simply as we predicted. However now, that brute turns from a tough par-4 to a risk-reward par-5. 

Does that mechanically make it … extra thrilling? Maybe. Despite the fact that the concept of par is just a assemble that makes viewing golf on TV simpler, it does change how gamers method the end. The ladies will largely all be enjoying driver off the tee after which seemingly an extended iron into the inexperienced, whereas on Saturday Rory McIlroy hit 5-wood, 9-iron. 

On Monday, loads of girls had been dropping a ball in (or hitting to) a flat spot within the nook of the golf green to observe that 60-yard, over-water wedge shot they might want for an up-and-down birdie (and a medal). It’ll be fascinating to how completely different the tallied scores shall be. My guess: fewer 3s, fewer 4s, a lot fewer 6s. 

5. Lydia’s lacking medals 

With Xander Schauffele imploding on Sunday, just one golfer on the earth can declare a number of medals. That’s Lydia Ko. The one oddity is that she’s loads like Schauffele. She doesn’t actually know the place hers are. 

Schauffele says he believes his Gold from the Tokyo Video games is at his dad and mom home, and Ko believes the Silver from the Rio Video games is in her father’s closet, with the Bronze from Tokyo someplace in her sister’s condo. I requested her why she feels so comfy with different individuals holding onto her prized possessions. The reason being touching.

“I’m not very cautious to begin off with, anyway, so I belief them greater than my reminiscence,” Ko mentioned, earlier than providing a healthful story about her household.

“Tokyo, due to circumstances, I used to be solely there with my sister and my efficiency supervisor, and my grandmother had sadly handed the day I used to be leaving for Tokyo. I requested my sister who was going to Korea from Japan to take it again and present it to my dad and mom and likewise hopefully take it to grandma’s grave. That was sort of the which means on why it went to her place.”

One factor Ko did make clear, although, was that if she wins Gold this week to create the Medal Slam, she shall be storing all of her treasures in a single place.

6. Reverse commuting 

Eighteen male golfers are headed straight from Paris to Greensboro, N.C., for this week’s Wyndham Championship, a reminder that the beat goes on in professional golf. There’s at all times one other event to get to. However the reverse of that feels significantly taxing.

India’s Aditi Ashok is on her technique to Paris, in all probability arriving Monday evening, however gained’t get a have a look at the property till Tuesday morning on the earliest. Why? She made the lower in final week’s LPGA occasion in Portland, which delayed her arrival to France longer than anybody else within the Olympics subject. She completed T22 and, presumably, jumped on a string of flights to get to the Video games, spanning 9 time zones within the course of. 

Professional golfers are hardened vacationers — we all know this. However it turns into significantly tough when you think about the ladies’s comp kicks off a day sooner than most weeks, on Wednesday. All of which suggests, Ashok shall be enjoying a full 18-hole observe spherical Tuesday if she needs to see each gap on the property. Test again Tuesday, and we’ll let you understand how she’s feeling.