Why Olympic golf nonetheless issues to Scheffler, McIlroy, extra

Many of the world’s finest golfers spent the previous 4 months enjoying within the 4 most well-known tournaments on the planet — the Masters, PGA Championship, U.S. Open and The Open.

In August, lots of them will compete within the FedEx Cup playoffs on the PGA Tour, which awards a $25 million bonus to the winner.

So the place does an Olympic gold medal rank towards a coveted inexperienced jacket that comes with profitable the Masters or a Claret Jug that goes to the golfer who finishes first on the Open Championship? Particularly in a sport the place cash appears to be the one factor that issues?

This yr’s Olympic males’s golf event, which begins Thursday at Le Golf Nationwide outdoors Paris, is simply the fifth time golf has been included within the Summer time Video games. Golf was formally acknowledged as a sport in 1900 and 1904 however wasn’t a part of the Olympics once more till 2016.

“I have been requested this query lots: The place would an Olympic medal sit in kind of the hierarchy of my profession achievements?” Eire’s Rory McIlroy stated. “And it is one thing I most likely will not be capable of reply till when every little thing is claimed and accomplished.

“I do not know if something will be capable of sit alongside the majors. Now we have our 4 occasions a yr which are the gold customary. However I believe that is going to be, in time, going to be proper up there amongst that.”

It is fairly an about-face for McIlroy, who certified for the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. He skipped the event over considerations concerning the Zika virus, and later stated he resented the Olympics as a result of it will trigger him to determine whether or not to signify Eire or Nice Britain.

When requested whether or not he would watch the Rio Olympics, McIlroy famously stated, “Most likely occasions like observe and subject, swimming, diving, the stuff that issues.”

“I do not really feel like I’ve let the sport down in any respect,” McIlroy stated on the 2016 Open Championship. “I did not get into golf to attempt to develop the sport. I obtained into golf to win championships and win majors.”

McIlroy competed within the Tokyo Olympics in 2021 and fell brief in a seven-man playoff for the bronze medal, which was received by C.T. Pan of Chinese language Taipei. On the time, McIlroy stated, “I have been saying all day I by no means tried so laborious in my life to complete third. It makes me much more decided going to Paris and making an attempt to choose one up. It is disappointing going away from right here with none {hardware}.”

After a forgettable majors season, through which McIlroy collapsed over the ultimate 4 holes on the U.S. Open at Pinehurst No. 2 and missed the minimize at The Open at Royal Troon Golf Membership in Scotland, the Olympics would possibly imply much more to him now. He has an opportunity so as to add a coveted trophy — even when he did not at all times acknowledge it as such.

“It will be the achievement — actually of the yr,” McIlroy stated. “I believe for me, it is nicely documented that I have never received one of many huge 4 in 10 years. It will most likely be certainly one of, if not the largest, in my profession for the final 10 years.”

Xander Schauffele, who obtained his first two main wins on the PGA Championship and the Open Championship this season, is certainly one of solely two males’s golfers previously 120 years to seize a gold medal on the Olympics. He received gold on the COVID-delayed Tokyo Olympics in 2021, 5 years after England’s Justin Rose completed first within the golf event in Rio.

Even Schauffele admits that claiming a gold medal would not carry the identical weight as profitable a serious — no less than not but.

“It’s a good query, however it’s tough,” Schauffele stated. “Golf was within the Olympics after which it was out of the Olympics. So I believe quite a lot of the youngsters had been watching Tiger [Woods], or should you’re slightly bit older, you are watching Jack [Nicklaus] or Arnie [Palmer], the older legends of the sport. You are watching them win majors.

“The majors are kind of what I grew up watching. They’re two very various things to me. I believe the gold medal, it has been marinating properly. Perhaps in 30, 40 years, it is one thing that is actually going to be particular because it will get extra traction and it form of will get again into the eyes or into the normalcy of being within the Olympics.”

The 60-man subject for the Olympic event consists of the highest seven golfers within the Official World Golf Rating, however solely 11 of the highest 20 due to qualification requirements.

Every nation was permitted a most of 4 golfers, however every nation’s group can embrace not more than two golfers who aren’t ranked within the prime 15 of the OWGR. The sector is powerful however not as elite because it may very well be.

“You watch different sports activities, that is the best way it’s,” Eire’s Shane Lowry stated. “When you do not run the time and do not qualify, you are not in. You watch the American [track and field] nationals, it is the largest race of the yr, the Jamaican nationals within the dash. In the event that they run a nasty race, despite the fact that they is likely to be probably the greatest on the planet, they aren’t right here competing.”

World No. 1 golfer Scottie Scheffler, Schauffele, Wyndham Clark and Collin Morikawa are representing the U.S. Seven others had been included within the prime 20 of the OWGR, most notably U.S. Open champion Bryson DeChambeau, who competes within the LIV Golf League.

“I do know we’re not used to that in golf — that the largest occasions have the perfect fields,” Lowry stated. “However , there [are] a couple of gamers perhaps that will make it higher, however it’s nonetheless the Olympics and we have all certified to play for our nation and we’re all right here to win a medal.”

Scheffler, who has received six instances on the PGA Tour this season, together with a second victory on the Masters in April, is as soon as once more the favourite to win in Paris. Though Scheffler says he tries to place equal emphasis on each event he performs, he is aware of profitable a gold medal for the U.S. can be totally different.

“It will be very particular,” Scheffler stated. “It is not fairly often you get to compete within the Olympics, so to have the ability to have a medal for the remainder of your life can be very particular.”