Matthieu Pavon on Thursday at Le Golf Nationwide.
Getty Photographs
At simply after midday native time Thursday, a swarm of charged-up followers ringing the primary tee field at Le Golf Nationwide — the Olympic Golf competitors’s host course — broke out into music. Their chorale of selection: “La Marseillaise,” France’s nationwide anthem, which begins:
Allons enfants de la patrie,
Le jour de gloire est arrivé!
Contre nous de la tyrannie
L’étendard sanglant est levé!
Unfastened translation:
Let’s go kids of the fatherland,
The day of glory has arrived!
In opposition to us tyranny’s
Bloody flag is raised!
Discuss a walk-up music. The stirring hymn, which was composed through the French Revolution, was directed at the preferred golfer at this XXXIII Olympiad: France’s personal Matthieu Pavon. In the event you’re simply becoming a member of us, Pavon, who bought his pro-golf begin a few decade in the past on the Alps Tour, has been on fairly a run. Late final yr, he completed fifteenth within the DP World Tour’s Race to Dubai to earn a PGA Tour card for 2024. In his first look of the yr, he tied for seventh in Maui. Then got here one other robust begin (T39) in Palm Springs. However even with these promising outcomes, nobody may have predicted what was coming subsequent: On the Farmers Insurance coverage Open at Torrey Pines, Pavon shot a closing 69 to win by a shot, changing into the first Frenchman to win on Tour since 1907.
Le jour de gloire est arrivé!
Every week later, Pavon completed third at Pebble Seashore. In April, he tied for twelfth on the Masters. In June, he claimed his first-ever top-10 end at a serious, with a Fifth-place end on the U.S. Open at Pinehurst. In July, he made one other minimize a serious, this time on the Open Championship at Royal Troon. However his dream yr wasn’t over. Removed from it, as a result of one other momentous occasion beckoned: the Summer season Video games in Pavon’s homeland.
Like most golfers, Pavon didn’t develop up aspiring to win a gold medal for his nation. “My dream since a child, it’s to go play in America, and that is what I achieved finish of final yr,” Pavon mentioned earlier this week. “Then my dream is to win in America. That is what I did.”
Fulfilling that dream, although, serendipitously unlocked one other one: qualifying to signify his nation on the planet’s greatest sporting occasion, hosted by a metropolis about 400 miles north of his childhood residence in Toulouse. “I went straight to be like, let’s say, underdog to somebody who can be within the Olympics this yr,” Pavon mentioned.
Any ambivalence Pavon might need had about competing within the Video games — a standard sentiment amongst golfers — was washed away in a matter of days if not hours. Absorbing the Opening Ceremonies alongside the Seine. Hanging within the Olympic Village together with his fellow athletes. Attending a few occasions. All of it bought Pavon within the temper — after which some. “All the nice moments we spent the previous few days,” he mentioned Tuesday, “it actually appears like a gold medal can be now ranked greater than a serious for me.”
8 issues we realized from Matthieu Pavon’s charming post-win press convention
The scene on the primary tee Thursday would have accomplished nothing to persuade Pavon in any other case. When he and his enjoying companions, Collin Morikawa and Matt Fitzpatrick descended the stairwell that results in the tee, they had been greeted by 1000’s of followers on the amphitheater slopes. It wasn’t fairly a Ryder Cup-sized gallery (like we noticed at Le Golf Nationwide in 2018), however it wasn’t far off, and most had been there to induce on one participant, with many waving French flags above their heads. Nobody is evaluating Pavon to Michael Phelps, however Phelps swam in 5 Video games and by no means as soon as had the chance to take action in entrance of a house crowd. For Olympic athletes, these events are uncommon.
“That was a loopy second which I wasn’t ready [for],” Pavon mentioned. “At that second, too massive, took feelings, too many individuals screaming simply your identify.” He added: “An expertise I by no means skilled earlier than, though once I performed the final spherical at Torrey this yr wasn’t that massive.”
Was he overwhelmed?
“Utterly,” Pavon mentioned. “I feel it’s regular, no?”
Tres regular. And but Pavon bore down on the duty at hand, whipping the galleries additional right into a frenzy with a birdie on the par-4 1st. His opening 3, although, can be his solely birdie on the outward 9, which he performed in one-under 35. Bogeys adopted at 10 and 12, certainly one of which he neutralized with a birdie at 14. After 4 closing pars, Pavon had shot an even-par 71, leaving him eight again of Hideki Matsuyama’s first-round lead.
“Typically it was an excessive amount of for me,” Pavon admitted afterward of the group’s adoration. “I don’t know if it’s an excessive amount of for me, however, as I say, I wasn’t ready. You don’t actually have a gap the place you possibly can relax and breathe and take some water. It’s at all times you get again to that tee field and everybody screaming your identify, and stuff like this, so that you by no means get some relaxation. That was a really tiring day for me.”
Pavon wasn’t the one participant who sensed the love for Pavon. Xander Schaufelle and Jon Rahm, a gaggle forward, may hear the chants for the Frenchman. So may Shane Lowry, who was two teams forward. “You hear the French crowd cheering him on to each inexperienced, each tee,” Lowry mentioned. “Being on the market right now reveals you ways massive this match truly is.”
Lowry mentioned he even felt a crush of assist for himself on the primary tee. “It was almost off-putting just a little bit, like, wow, I wasn’t anticipating that,” Lowry mentioned. “I bought goosebumps, and I hit a extremely dangerous tee shot. However I’m not blaming them. It was my fault.”
Of the final vibe, Schaufelle added: “I don’t know what I used to be anticipating. I heard 30,000 [fans] a day, which is lots. It’s a ton of individuals. And I heard they bought as much as like 18ish, possibly, 20 right now, one thing like that. We’ll make it up as we go. What we usually do. But it surely was an superior environment. And the truth that there’s solely 20 teams, the followers type of — it’s very congested in one of the best ways doable.”
Particularly round Pavon.
The Frenchman is aware of this an enormous second for golf in his nation, however he additionally is aware of there’s nonetheless rather more work to be accomplished earlier than le jour de gloire actually arrives.
“Ryder Cup helped just a little bit and Olympics helped just a little bit extra,” he mentioned. “I feel what we want is to win a medal or win a serious.”
