Postcards from Paris: Wanting again on how golf performed out on the Olympics

SAINT-QUENTIN-EN-YVELINES, France – Two weeks, 144 holes, six medal winners and numerous indelible moments have been made throughout golf’s fortnight on the Olympics.

From Scottie Scheffler’s emotional victory to Lydia Ko’s career-defining march to the LPGA Corridor of Fame, the Paris Video games didn’t disappoint.

Golf has arrived within the Olympics

Full cease.

In some ways, the 2016 and 2020 Video games have been a warm-up to this 12 months’s Olympics and a long-awaited victory lap for individuals who pushed the Worldwide Olympic Committee to permit golf again within the fold.

That preliminary pitch to the IOC targeted on three key areas:

• The highest gamers would purchase in to golf within the Olympics.
• The competitors could be compelling.
• The followers would embrace a sport that takes 4 days to crown a champion.

Examine, test and test.

GOLF IN REVIEW AT THE PARIS OLYMPICS

In contrast to in ’16 in Rio when a number of the recreation’s high gamers opted out, all of golf’s stars – each women and men – turned up for the Paris Video games and produced impressed finishes, with world No. 1 Scheffler closing with a 62 to win gold for the lads and Ko producing a machine-like efficiency down the stretch to win the ladies’s occasion (and a lot extra).

Each finishes also needs to put an finish to the narrative that 72-holes of stroke play is an uninspired option to crown Olympic champions. And the crowds that flocked to Le Golf Nationwide proved that with out a international pandemic, a golf-savvy host nation will embrace Olympic golf.

Podium Slam for Lydia Ko

It wasn’t straightforward to finish the fairytale, however Ko by no means anticipated it to be.

With the burden of a historical past on her shoulders, Ko outlasted the sphere on the Olympic ladies’s occasion to change into the primary golfer to win the gold, silver and bronze medals. She additionally earned the ultimate level for entry into the LPGA Corridor of Fame.

Lydia Ko gained the gold medal on the Olympic ladies’s golf competitors to finish the trifecta and enter the LPGA Corridor of Fame.

“I imply, Cinderella’s glass slippers are see-through and my podium sneakers are additionally see-through; I assume that’s one thing that we’ve got going for us. I really feel like I’m a part of this [fairy]story,” mentioned Ko, who closed with a 71 for a two-stroke victory over Germany’s Esther Henseleit. “Going into this week, everybody was saying, oh, what should you end and accumulate all of the gold on high of the silver and bronze you’ve got. After all I wish to try this, full it, too, but it surely’s a lot simpler mentioned than finished.”

Ko’s victory was something however comfy, regardless of constructing a five-stroke lead simply previous the flip at Le Golf Nationwide. The New Zealander’s lead was reduce to 2 pictures by a poor strategy on the par-4 13^th gap that led to double-bogey 6, however she closed with 4 workmanlike pars and a birdie on the final to finish the trifecta.

As for incomes the clinching level to assert her spot within the LPGA Corridor of Fame, even Ko may admire the type factors.

“Did I think about that I used to be going to do it on the Paris Olympics? In all probability not,” she mentioned. “However that is undoubtedly the good solution to do it.”

Perspective for the sport

There’s a lesson to be gleaned from the truth that in lower than a 12 months two of probably the most memorable occasions in golf, the Ryder Cup and Olympics, have a mixed purse of $0.

Because the narrative in skilled golf continues to be about participant greed and unrealistic economics, Scheffler provided a monsoon of perspective throughout a tearful medal ceremony.

Scottie Scheffler stormed to gold within the last spherical of the Olympic males’s competitors after which he felt the burden of the accomplishment.

“It was simply very emotional being up there on stage there because the flag is being raised and sitting there singing the Nationwide Anthem. Sure, that’s undoubtedly one I’ll keep in mind for a very long time,” mentioned Scheffler, a six-time winner on the PGA Tour this season who isn’t precisely liable to emotional outburst.

The talk over the place an Olympic medal falls on the move chart of significance in golf will proceed, however let Scheffler’s emotion be a reminder of what it means to play for one thing greater than cash.

Olympic stress

The distinctive nature of Olympic golf, which focuses solely on the top-3 finishers, produced some really beautiful moments, together with Jon Rahm’s Sunday collapse throughout the males’s competitors.

The Spaniard was on cruise management with a four-shot lead with simply eight holes to play when his Olympics unraveled. The 2-time main champion bogeyed Nos. 11 and 12 and made a double-bogey 7 on the 14^th gap. Rahm performed his method fully off the rostrum with two extra bogeys at Nos. 17 and 18.

“I don’t keep in mind the final time I performed a match and I felt this,” Rahm mentioned. “I don’t know what the phrase is as a result of, you already know, I not solely really feel like I let myself down however to only not get it finished for the entire nation of Spain, it’s much more painful than I would love it to be.”

Vive la France

An rising custom on the Olympics is to permit a participant from the host nation to hit the match’s first tee shot, a second that set the tone for each competitions when Victor Perez teed off to begin the lads’s occasion.

Perez then ignited the house crowd with a closing 63 that left him only one shot behind bronze medal winner Hideki Matsuyama. Through the ladies’s competitors, it was Celine Boutier who carried the flag with a gap 65.

Each gamers got here up quick of their bid to medal however the secret sauce is clear – golf within the Olympics is compelling, however leaning into the nationalistic part is a power multiplier.

Olympic emotion

For many athletes in Paris who solely get the possibility to compete on the highest stage each 4 years, the emotional toll of victory and defeat is clear. However even golfers – who’re given common alternatives for greatness – have been impacted by the fervour of the Video games.

Essentially the most notable instance of this was Tom Kim, whose bid to medal got here all the way down to the ultimate gap which he wanted to eagle to power a playoff with Matsuyama. Kim’s understandably aggressive try on the 72^nd gap backfired, and he completed with a double-bogey 6 and an eighth-place end.