Olympics Golf 2024 Preview:
After an absence of more than a century, golf was reinstated to the Olympic Games for Rio 2016. Now it is back for its third go-around at Le Golf National, located just southwest of Paris. Unlike the 1900 games in Paris, where there was a team and individual competition, there are just individual competitions here in Paris with 60 players on the men’s side and 60 on the women’s side.
Like most tournaments, these are four-day stroke-play events held over 72 holes with gold, silver and bronze medals awarded at the conclusion. In the event of a tie, there will be sudden-death playoffs to decide the medals. This happened at the Tokyo Games when Chinese Taipei’s C.T. Pan emerged from a seven-man playoff to earn the bronze medal.
Scottie Scheffler (4-1) and Xander Schauffele (6-1) won three of the four major championships this year and Schauffele is the defending gold medalist from the Tokyo Games.
Rory McIlroy (8-1) represents Ireland for the second straight Olympics and was part of that seven-man playoff for the bronze in Tokyo.
Jon Rahm (11-1) won for the first time in 2024 at LIV UK last weekend.
Collin Morikawa (12-1) was also part of the seven-man playoff for bronze three years ago.
Ludvig Åberg (12-1), Tommy Fleetwood (22-1), Shane Lowry (24-1), Viktor Hovland (28-1), Alex Noren (35-1), Matt Fitzpatrick (50-1) and Sepp Straka (50-1) add to a strong European contingent in this field.
Joaquin Niemann (25-1), Tom Kim (30-1), Corey Conners (35-1), Hideki Matsuyama (35-1), Min Woo Lee (50-1) and Byeong Hun An (55-1) are also medal contenders.
The Fields
The field of 60 players is selected as follows:
The top 15 world-ranked players on the IGF (International Golf Federation) points list with no more than four players coming from one nation.
The remaining spots are allocated based on said points list with no more than two players coming from one nation.
The IGF guarantees that at least one golfer from the host nation and each geographical region (Africa, the Americas, Asia, Europe and Oceania) also qualifies for the field.
The men’s competition takes place on Thursday through Sunday.
Here are the 60 players in the men’s field:
World Ranking as of June 17, 2024
USA
Scottie Scheffler – No. 1
Xander Schauffele – No. 3
Wyndham Clark – No. 5
Collin Morikawa – No. 7
Ireland
Rory McIlroy – No. 2
Shane Lowry – No. 33
Sweden
Ludvig Åberg – No. 4
Alex Noren – No. 55
Norway
Viktor Hovland – No. 6
Kristoffer Ventura – No. 281
Spain
Jon Rahm – No. 9
David Puig – No. 113
Japan
Hideki Matsuyama – No. 12
Keita Nakajima – No. 83
Great Britain
Tommy Fleetwood – No. 13
Matt Fitzpatrick – No. 18
France
Matthieu Pavon – No. 20
Victor Perez – No. 78
Austria
Sepp Straka – No. 21
Australia
Jason Day – No. 24
Min Woo Lee – No. 36
South Korea
Tom Kim – No. 26
Byeong Hun An – No. 27
Canada
Nick Taylor – No. 35
Corey Conners – No. 37
South Africa
Christiaan Bezuidenhout – No. 40
Erik van Rooyen – No. 67
Germany
Stephan Jaeger – No. 42
Matti Schmid – No. 134
Denmark
Nicolai Højgaard – No. 44
Thorbjørn Olesen – No. 85
Belgium
Thomas Detry – No. 48
Adrien Dumont de Chassart – No. 187
Argentina
Emiliano Grillo – No. 52
Alejandro Tosti – No. 98
New Zealand
Ryan Fox – No. 59
Daniel Hillier – No. 190
Poland
Adrian Meronk – No. 73
Chile
Joaquin Niemann – No. 99
Mito Pereira – No. 272
Finland
Sami Välimäki – No. 100
Tapio Pulkkanen – No. 378
Chinese Taipei
Kevin Yu – No. 108
C.T. Pan – No. 140
China
Carl Yuan – No. 155
Marty Dou – No. 338
Colombia
Camilo Villegas – No. 177
Nico Echavarria – No. 269
Italy
Matteo Manassero – No. 180
Guido Migliozzi – No. 198
India
Shubhankar Sharma – No. 219
Gaganjeet Bhullar – No. 261
Puerto Rico
Rafael Campos – No. 221
Mexico
Carlos Ortiz – No. 240
Abraham Ancer – No. 312
Thailand
Kiradech Aphibarnrat – No. 242
Phachara Khongwatmai – No. 287
Malaysia
Gavin Green – No. 257
Paraguay
Fabrizio Zanotti – No. 343
Switzerland
Joel Girrbach – No. 366
The Course
The Albatross Course at Le Golf National, located in Guyancourt, just southwest of Paris, will host the Olympic competitions. Golf fans and bettors alike should be familiar with this track as it hosted the 2018 Ryder Cup (won by Team Europe 17.5-10.5). It also hosts the Open de France yearly on the DP World Tour.
Designed by Hubert Chesnaeu and Robert Van Hagge, Le Golf National opened near Versailles on the outskirts of Paris in 1991.
The course will play as a par-71 of 7,174 yards for the Olympic competition this week.
The best way to describe Le Golf National is as a combination of a links course with a Florida-style design because of the amount of water.
Le Golf National has regularly been one of the toughest courses in the DP World Tour rotation with the average winning score across the past 10 French Opens playing around 11 under par.
Three cuts of rough, which we did not see at the Ryder Cup in 2018, ranging from 2.5 inches to 4.7 inches, have been added to this week’s setup, so hitting the narrow fairways (28-yard average width) is paramount.
The greens are quite large at an average of 7,535 square feet and are a mix of bentgrass and poa annua. At the 2018 Ryder Cup, the greens ran at a little over 10 on the stimpmeter as the home Ryder Cup team gets to set up the course as they choose, and the Europeans are historically better on the slower greens. This week, they are expected to run at a faster speed of 12 but will be soft as France has received a lot of rain.
Ten of the Albatross’ 18 holes have water at least partially in play, including six on the back nine. The greens on the 15th, 16th and 18th holes all have water guarding the approach shots, so it should make for an exciting finish.
Detailed course information is provided by the GCSAA (Golf Course Superintendents Association of America).
The IGF website also provides us with a hole-by-hole course tour of Le Golf National.
Here is the scorecard for Le Golf National courtesy of PGATOUR.com:
Olympic Golf History
2020 Tokyo
Men’s:
Gold: Xander Schauffele – USA 9-1
Silver: Rory Sabbatini – Slovakia
Bronze: C.T. Pan – Chinese Taipei*
*Won a seven-man playoff that also included Paul Casey (Great Britain), Hideki Matsuyama (Japan), Rory McIlroy (Ireland), Collin Morikawa (USA), Sebastián Muñoz (Colombia), and Mito Pereira (Chile).
2016 Rio
Men’s:
Gold: Justin Rose – Great Britain 12-1
Silver: Henrik Stenson – Sweden
Bronze: Matt Kuchar – USA
Selections
On the men’s side, players who have had previous success here include winners of the Open de France, including Tommy Fleetwood (2017), Alex Noren (2018) and Guido Migliozzi (2022).
Fleetwood also went 4-1 in the 2018 Ryder Cup victory for Team Europe.
Other high past finishes in events held at Le Golf National include McIlroy (third in 2016), Jon Rahm (fifth in 2017 and 10th in 2018), Thorbjørn Olesen (third in 2017 and 10th in 2023), David Puig (fourth in 2022), Ryan Fox (sixth in 2017), Tom Kim (sixth in 2023) and Ludvig Åberg (seventht in 2022).
Jon Rahm (11-1, BetMGM)
It has been a tumultuous year for Rahm. He became the new face of LIV Golf at the end of 2023 and did not dominate in the way most thought he would. Then he disappointed at the majors including having to withdraw from the U.S. Open with an injury.
Last weekend, he finally won at LIV UK and wound up in tears.
A weight might have been finally lifted with the victory. The motivation is certainly there as every time he competes, especially representing Spain, he thinks of his hero, Seve Ballesteros.
The gold medal would certainly make him feel better about a disappointing 2024.
Collin Morikawa (11-1, BetMGM)
Morikawa is winless in 2024 but has finished third at the Masters, fourth at the PGA Championship and has three other top-4 finishes from his last six starts.
While he has never played this course, he can adapt and get acclimated quickly as evidenced by his win on debut at the British Open in 2021.
He also just missed the medals in Tokyo three years ago, losing in the seven-man playoff for bronze.
Tommy Fleetwood (22-1, Caesars Sportsbook)
Fleetwood won the French Open on this course in 2017.
He also was part of the “Moliwood” duo with Francesco Molinari that dominated Team USA at the 2018 Ryder Cup.
Fleetwood is also playing with a heavy heart, as are all the athletes competing for Team GB (Great Britain), because of the tragic stabbing attack in his hometown of Southport, England, on Monday.
Alex Noren (40-1, Circa Sports)
Noren won on this course in 2018, which got him on the European Ryder Cup team that same year at the same venue where he won two of his three matches.
He comes in on form with a 10th at the Scottish Open and a 13th at the British Open.
Byeong Hun An (66-1, Bet Rivers)
By now we are all familiar with the extra motivations for South Korean players. Both Benny An and Tom Kim are subject to a two-year military obligation unless they win sporting medals in international competitions like the Olympics.
Benny An’s father, Zhimin Jiao, won a bronze medal for China in men’s table tennis doubles at the 1988 Olympic Games in Seoul while his mother, Jae Hyung An, won silver (doubles) and bronze (singles) in table tennis representing South Korea on home soil in 1988.
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