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Mark Schlabach, ESPN Senior Author
Many of the world’s greatest golfers spent the previous 4 months taking part in within the 4 most well-known tournaments on this 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 in opposition to a coveted inexperienced jacket that comes with successful 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 12 months’s Olympic males’s golf event, which begins Thursday at Le Golf Nationwide exterior Paris, is barely the fifth time golf has been included within the Summer season 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 form of the hierarchy of my profession achievements?” Eire’s Rory McIlroy mentioned. “And it is one thing I most likely will not be capable to reply till when all the things is claimed and executed.
“I do not know if something will be capable to sit alongside the majors. We now have our 4 occasions a 12 months which can be the gold normal. However I feel 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 mentioned he resented the Olympics as a result of it could trigger him to resolve whether or not to signify Eire or Nice Britain.
When requested whether or not he would watch the Rio Olympics, McIlroy famously mentioned, “In all probability occasions like monitor and subject, swimming, diving, the stuff that issues.”
“I do not really feel like I’ve let the sport down in any respect,” McIlroy mentioned on the 2016 Open Championship. “I did not get into golf to attempt to develop the sport. I acquired 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 mentioned, “I have been saying all day I by no means tried so exhausting in my life to complete third. It makes me much more decided going to Paris and making an attempt to select one up. It is disappointing going away from right here with none {hardware}.”
After a forgettable majors season, by which McIlroy collapsed over the ultimate 4 holes on the U.S. Open at Pinehurst No. 2 and missed the lower 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 could be the achievement — definitely of the 12 months,” McIlroy mentioned. “I feel for me, it is effectively documented that I have not received one of many large 4 in 10 years. It could most likely be one in all, if not the most important, in my profession for the final 10 years.”
Xander Schauffele, who acquired his first two main wins on the PGA Championship and the Open Championship this season, is one in all 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 does not carry the identical weight as successful a significant — no less than not but.
“It’s a good query, nevertheless it’s tough,” Schauffele mentioned. “Golf was within the Olympics after which it was out of the Olympics. So I feel a whole lot of the youngsters had been watching Tiger [Woods], or for those who’re a bit of 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 form of what I grew up watching. They’re two very various things to me. I feel 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 sort 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 embody not more than two golfers who aren’t ranked within the high 15 of the OWGR. The sphere is robust however not as elite because it could possibly be.
“You watch different sports activities, that is the best way it’s,” Eire’s Shane Lowry mentioned. “In case 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 most important race of the 12 months, the Jamaican nationals within the dash. In the event that they run a foul race, despite the fact that they could be probably the greatest on this planet, they don’t seem to be 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 high 20 of the OWGR, most notably U.S. Open champion Bryson DeChambeau, who competes within the LIV Golf League.
“I do know we aren’t used to that in golf — that the most important occasions have the very best fields,” Lowry mentioned. “However you understand, there [are] a number of gamers perhaps that may make it higher, nevertheless 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 successful a gold medal for the U.S. could be totally different.
“It could be very particular,” Scheffler mentioned. “It isn’t fairly often you get to compete within the Olympics, so to have the ability to have a medal for the remainder of your life could be very particular.”
