GUYANCOURT, France — It’s rare for longtime players to be sincerely surprised by anything in professional sports, even when the unexpected occurs. At some point, they’ve seen so much. Nothing will genuinely catch them off guard.
Yet, one by one, pros from both the PGA Tour and LIV Golf exited Le Golf National saying the same thing — that, in a twist no one saw coming, the first round of the Olympic men’s golf competition delivered a massive crowd, great energy and the general feel of a tournament that means something.
“Unbelievable,” Rory McIlroy said, pulling a green Team Ireland hat off his forehead and raising his brows. “It was surprising.”
Credit where it’s due. On Day 1 here, Paris 2024 delivered what Rio didn’t and what Tokyo couldn’t. The former, which welcomed golf back to the Olympic Games for the first time since 1904, was marred by Zika virus concerns, player opt-outs and a deep disinterest bred by an event feeling isolated from the rest of the Olympiad. The latter was played amid the Covid-19 pandemic, on an empty course, and again felt especially isolated from the greater Games.
Thursday in Paris was somewhat assumed to bring more of the same. Coming only two weeks after a major with infinitely more history and importance, there was little buildup and less hype. Players strolled a course that hosted the 2018 Ryder Cup for practice rounds earlier this week, thinking the slumber would continue. Other than those few golfers who participated in the Opening Ceremonies, this week has been little different than any week on whatever tour they play on. Another four-round, 72-hole stroke play tournament. All that’d be different was the attire — the official Olympic ensembles of their home countries.
Those assumptions were wrong.
An estimated 25,000-30,000 showed up at Le Golf National on Thursday. Tees, fairways and greens were lined with fans stacked rows deep. More importantly, they came with the same energy that’s coursed through these Olympics. From La Defense Arena to Château de Versailles to Stade de France to Le Golf National.
Players arrived at the first tee expecting one thing but came upon another. Jason Day, a major winner and 13-time PGA Tour winner, said he heard the crowd from the practice putting green and realized he was walking into something different. He said the opening shot was the most nervy of his career.
Australian teammate Min Woo Lee got unexpectedly emotional on the first tee. He had to swallow a lump in his throat and thought he detected a tear in his eye. “I didn’t know I was going to react like that,” the 26-year-old said.
Those feelings — of what it means to represent one’s country, of being part of Paris 2024 — were all genuine, all real.
Rory McIlroy walks off to the cheers of the crowd Thursday, measured in the tens of thousands. (John MacDougall / AFP via Getty Images)
But the question is, from this point on, will this tournament functionally feel any different than any other four-round, 72-hole stroke play tournament?
No one was quite sure.
Tommy Fleetwood: “It does and it doesn’t.”
McIlroy: “I don’t know.”
Day: “It’s just like, a different vibe.”
That remains the fatal flaw of Olympic golf competition. Three iterations since the sport’s return to the Games, it’s the same conversation, the same questions.
The record may finally change in Los Angeles in 2028. Earlier this week, Antony Scanlon, executive director of the International Golf Federation, publicly confirmed plans for a mixed team event of 36 holes featuring both alternate shot and best-ball rounds occurring in addition to the men’s and women’s individual 72-hole stroke-play events at Riviera. The International Olympic Committee is reviewing the proposal.
McIlroy said back in 2016, when golf was reintroduced after 112 years, most players expected a mixed event and would strongly support such an addition. Ireland’s McIlroy and Leona Maguire. The U.S.’s Scottie Scheffler and Nelly Korda. South Korea’s Jin Young Ko and Tom Kim, England’s Matt Fitzpatrick and Charley Hull, and so on and so on. Yeah, there’d be interest in that.
“If that came to fruition in L.A., where there was a mixed-team event … and Shane (Lowry) and I could (still) play (in the stroke event), if we qualify, yeah, I’d love that,” McIlroy said. “I think that would be a great format to bring to this competition.”
Would that be enough to up golf’s Olympic presence? It’d be a start. Seventy-two-hole stroke play will likely never be eliminated wholesale, as it’s considered the standard measure for determining the best player. As Fleetwood put it on Thursday: “If it’s an Olympic medal and has the prestige that it should have, it should be the same as the majors.”
Had ourselves a day! #OlympicGolf pic.twitter.com/COCwL3BnL3
— Olympic Golf (@OlympicGolf) August 1, 2024
There is undoubtedly a place for golf in the Olympics. It’s a global game — 14 countries are in the top 40 of the Official World Golf Rankings.
Not only should golf be in the Games, it should create every opportunity to award more than three medals for men and three medals for women. The 2024 Games are made up of 329 total competitions across 32 sports. That’s 987 total medals. Golf accounts for 0.61 percent. The sport is on the periphery of the Olympics in all ways imaginable, even though the worldwide audience recognizes the Olympics more than anything else the game itself can offer.
“I feel like 2 percent of Chile knows what the PGA Tour is or what LIV Golf is,” said 25-year-old Joaquín Niemann, “and the other 98 percent, I feel like they all know — probably a hundred percent of them — they all know what the Olympics are.”
So, too, do the players themselves.
Earlier this week, Victor Perez found himself in a room full of fellow French Olympians. He was struck by the variety of talent around him, that each individual was so good at such a specific talent.
That the Games are so big, while golf is so surprisingly small.
“I thought that was great just to be in the same room with people that can just throw the javelin 80 yards and another person can just ride a horse and do crazy things and swim 100 meters in 45 seconds,” Perez said. “It was quite extraordinary.”
(Top photo: Kevin C. Cox / Getty Images)
