SAINT-QUENTIN-EN-YVELINES, France — What was meant as a celebration of golf in the Olympics quickly turned into a reminder that the royal and ancient game still has a long way to go before it feels like it truly belongs.
In the field for the Genesis Invitational last year were Justin Rose and and Xander Schauffele, so the International Golf Federation thought this would be a good time to promote the Olympic golf competition going to Riviera Country Club for the Los Angeles Games in 2028.
Rose brought the gold medal he won in Rio de Janeiro in 2016, when golf returned to the Olympics after 112 years. Schauffele brought his gold medal from the Tokyo Games. And then another Olympian in town showed up to join them for a photo.
The golfers didn’t recognize swimming great Janet Evans until she reached into her bag and removed a small pole holding the four gold medals she won in Seoul and Barcelona.
“Hang on,” Evans said, reaching into her bag to retrieve a silver medal.
There are Olympic greats and golf greats, and they are not yet the same.
Nelly Korda and Inbee Park, both destined for the Hall of Fame, are on that short list of Olympic champions in golf. Scottie Scheffler, the No. 1 player in the world, joined them on Sunday. All are known more - equally at the very least - for feats outside the Olympics.
The question whether golf belongs in the Olympiad, and whether it really matters to players used to competing for themselves and for cash, should have been answered by now. Korda shared how her heart rate was higher on the podium in Tokyo than at any point on the golf course. Scheffler was in tears during the national anthem.
The sample size remains small, but in a fickle sport with the most level playing field, the gold medalists have been some of the biggest stars. All five are major champions. Four of them have been No. 1 in the world.
But it’s still not the pinnacle of sport.
Scheffler is as much a Masters champion as an Olympic gold medalist. Schauffele was two weeks removed from winning his second major of the year at the British Open.
Golf has four majors a year. For most other sports, there are only the Olympics once every for years.
That much came to light again on Monday at beach volleyball, with the Eiffel Tower as the spectacular backdrop. Taryn Kloth and Kristen Nuss, the No. 2 team in the world ranking, were knocked out by Canada.
“Definitely a little heartbroken,” Nuss said. “We came in wanting to bring home gold back to the United States. That’s been our goal for the past four years.”
Four years.
Just like it is in swimming and track, gymnastics and judo, archery and badminton.
There’s a reasonable comparison with golf and tennis, which also has four Grand Slam events a year. Olympic tennis feels more like a fifth. Rafa Nadal with his injured hip decided to skip Wimbledon to be ready for the Olympics at Roland Garros on the clay where he dominated. It’s hard to imagine any golfer skipping a major for the Olympics.
Tennis, however, returned to the Olympic program at the Seoul Games in 1988 - that’s 10 years before Korda was born. Give it time. Rory McIlroy thinks it could take 50 years for golf to feel important in the Olympics. Maybe it won’t take that long.
Still, golf moves slowly. Golfers who have spent time at other venues have seen the intensity, the high-charged emotion and the disappointment of early elimination. Victor Perez hit the opening tee shot in golf, and medals were not decided for nearly 81 hours. In the meantime, all 60 players (minus two players who withdrew with injury) kept playing until the end.
Golf is different.
There was another moment favorable toward golf in the Summer Games, but no less weird to Thomas Bach, the president of the International Olympic Committee.
Bach came out to the men’s competition at Kasumigaseki Country Club at the last Olympics. He stood under a tent next to the first tee when Paul Casey, next to play and waiting on the group in front to hit their shots to the green, walked over and began to chat with the IOC leader.
A few minutes later, Casey was introduced and hit away. Bach was heard saying, “In all my years at the Olympics, that is the first time an athlete has spoken to me during competition.”
It’s golf.
One downside is only six medals are offered - three for men, three for women. Tennis has singles and doubles, and mixed doubles was introduced at the London Games in 2012.
There has been clamoring from the start - all of eight years ago - for a team medal. Why not use the format of the old World Cup when there was an individual winner for low score and a team winner by adding the scores of both players?
It’s not that simple. The IOC prefers not to award two medals for one competition, and that’s reasonable. Why should Scheffler get two golds for one good week (the Americans would have won a team medal by six shots over Denmark)? Mixed teams is a likelihood for Riviera, and that will add some flavor.
In the meantime, golf gets a little more traction with each Olympics.
“Golf, it’s an interesting game. It’s an interesting sport,” Schauffele said. “You’re not sprinting across the finish line. We’re playing four days and it’s a little big longer of a race.”
But it’s a sprint when they get there - the seven-man playoff for the bronze in Tokyo, a dynamic finish at Le Golf National with a dozen players in the mix for a medal, half of them for the gold, and a golden moment for Scheffler with his 29 on the back nine.
It rivaled the U.S. Open for the best drama of the year, and Sunday’s back nine will be talked about until the next Olympics.
Golf is a good fit for the Olympics, even if it doesn’t look like the other Olympic sports.
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AP Summer Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/2024-paris-olympic-games
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