For just the third time in a century, golf will be contested at a Summer Olympics. The men’s golf tournament for the 2024 Paris Olympics begins on Thursday, wrapping up on Sunday, marking the third straight Olympic Games featuring the sport. It originally debuted at the 1900 Games and stuck around for the 1904 Summer Olympics before a 112-year gap. The sport returned in 2016.
Le Golf National, a par-72, 7,331-yard course in a southwest suburb of Paris, will host golf at the 2024 Olympics after hosting the Ryder Cup in 2018. Qualification for the tournament is a bit unique in that, while it does rely on Official World Golf Ranking, nations are limited to four golfers each. Only the top 15 ranked players automatically qualified – provided they were among the top four for their country. After that, the remainder of the field was filled out according to ranking, with a maximum of two players per nation and each continent having at least one representative.
As a result of this qualification system, Patrick Cantlay, who is No. 8 in the world but the fifth-ranked American, did not qualify, but Finland’s Tapio Pulkkanen, ranked No. 378, did qualify. Even with that, the tournament has a stacked field, with each of the top seven-ranked golfers and eight of the top 10 players in the world. The U.S. contingent features Scottie Scheffler, Xander Schauffele, Wyndham Clark and Collin Morikawa, who are all among the top six in the world.
Each of the four USA members have won major tournaments, which makes an American the favorite to take home the gold. Of the 31 other nations represented, just Ireland has even two golfers who have won majors, with Rory McIlroy and Shane Lowry. Outside of the four American and two Irishmen, four other players in the 2024 Olympics golf field are major winners: Spain’s Jon Rahm, Japan’s Hideki Matsuyama, Great Britain’s Matt Fitzpatrick and Australia’s Jason Day.
Even with past accomplishments in their favor, what the Americans don’t have working for them is the venue. None of the four U.S. golfers were part of Team USA during the 2018 Ryder Cup, so none of them have competed at Le Golf National before. In addition to hosting that Ryder Cup, the course also annually hosts the Open de France, which is a tournament on the European Tour. Thus, several of the many Europeans that currently, or in the past, competed on that tour are much more acquainted with the course and its intricacies than those representing the United States.
One of those is Englishman Tommy Fleetwood, who is representing Great Britain at Paris 2024. Fleetwood was one of the stars of the 2018 Ryder Cup, when Team Europe beat Team United States, as he went 4-1 overall during the event, notching the second-most points (four). The previous year, Fleetwood won the Open de France at Le Golf National, and now brings the best course history into the 2024 Summer Olympics. Other golfers in the Olympic field who have won the Open de France at this course include Sweden’s Alex Noren (2018) and Italy’s Guido Migliozzi (2022).
Once play tees off on Thursday, it will look like golf tournaments commonly seen on the PGA Tour. There will be four rounds of play, 18 holes in each round, and a stroke play scoring format. One notable change from the norm is that there will not be a cut, so all 60 players that tee off will play all four rounds, provided they don’t withdraw. In the event of a tie for one of the three medal spots, the tiebreaker is a sudden-death playoff. The 2020 Olympics needed a tiebreaker to determine the bronze medal winner, with seven golfers tied after 72 holes of play. Pan Cheng-tsung of Taiwan (which competes under the name Chinese Taipei in the Olympics) emerged from that group of seven with the bronze in 2020, and it took four sudden death holes to determine third place.
Taiwan is one of six nations to win a medal in men’s individual golf at the Olympics, covering the four previous Games in which the sport has been played. Sweden, Slovakia and Canada also each have one medal, while Great Britain has three medals. But the United States reigns supreme, winning six of the 13 individual Olympic medals (there was a tie for bronze in 1904). There was also a team golf event at the 1904 Games in which the U.S. swept all three medals, though the U.S. was also the only nation to compete. Overall, Americans have won more Olympic men’s golf medals (nine) than every other nation combined (seven). The foursome of Scheffler, Schauffele, Clark and Morikawa will look to keep that successful history going on the links of Le Golf National.
