THIS WAS THE day golf broke its Olympic mould while Rory McIlroy remained frozen painfully in his.
Le Golf National delivered an epic, eddying, electric finale, at the end of which Scottie Scheffler wept from the top of the podium, eighth-placed Tom Kim cried in front of the media having failed to bag the medal that would have exempted him from military service – more of which later – and Rory McIlroy was left sighing that he feels like “golf’s nearly man.”
This was the stuff of great golf Sundays. It had its blow-ups and brilliance, its thwarted charges and a whirling leaderboard, all scored to the raucous and giddy roars of a Ryder Cup-style crowd. Frenchman Victor Perez conducted it all, sprinting home in an absurd 29 to send the crowd into hysteria. Scheffler said Perez had earned “the Tiger treatment.”
The gold medal will further burnish Scottie Scheffler’s year but his winning it edifies the Olympic event too.
Where golf was an adjunct to the Games prior to Paris, it’s now a central event.
The world’s best player flew to Paris and stormed the Sunday gates, charging through the field to snatch gold from the clammy hands of Jon Rahm, who blew up at precisely the wrong time.
Scheffler won with a bogey-free round of 62, with six of his nine birdies coming on the back nine. Rahm stood on the 11th tee with a four-shot lead, but then went bogey-bogey-par-double to unfathomably drop out of the medal positions. He finished tied fifth with McIlroy.
Rory. Ah, Rory. Having clung to the fringes of the podium during the first half of his round, McIlroy suddenly caught fire at the turn to catapult himself into the medal positions, reeling off five-straight birdies before finding the throat of the 15th fairway.
This was the first fairway in which he stood while in the medal positions. At that point he was in a tie for third but just one shot from the gold medal, as Rahm was transfiguring from matador to snorting, uncontrolled bull.
“I looked at the board and I was at 14 and Jon had got to 20″, said McIlroy after his round. “So I didn’t really feel I had a chance. I looked at the board again after I’d birdied 14, and I was one behind, and I was like, ‘Holy shit what just happened?’
As is generally customary from the tee, McIlroy was the last to take his second shot into the green. First McIlroy watched Nicolai Hojgaard and Hideki Matsuyama take their shots, and then took out his wedge.
Allow McIlroy to walk you through the latest moment in which a country was left scolding him in disbelief.
“I hit the shot I wanted to hit. The two boys in front of me, they got their balls up in the air a little bit more and the wind carried it. They went 25, 30 feet past so I hit the shot I wanted to hit.
“I just didn’t get the ball in the air enough for the wind to carry it that extra three or four yards that it needed to. But I tried to stay aggressive, I tried to land the wedge between the front edge and the hole.
“I missed my spot by maybe three or of four yards, and that cost me a medal.”
As the ball trickled back into the water, McIlroy clamped his hands to his knees and squatted in familiar frustration. He made a double-bogey, and he finished two shots behind bronze medal winner Hideki Matsuyama.
Remaining aggressive down the stretch was the painful lesson of his near-misses at the 2022 Open and 2023 US Open, but in Paris it cost him a second-straight bronze medal playoff.
This was a big-time event, and so it for McIlroy it will sit too closely with the year’s majors.
“I feel I’ve been golf’s nearly man for the last three years”, he said. “I want that tide to turn, and go from the nearly man back to winning golf tournaments.
“It’s all well and good saying ‘Im close, I’m close, I’m close’, but until I step through the threshold and turn these close misses and close calls into wins, that’s what I need to do.”
Scheffler’s performance was astonishing, opening with three-straight birdies before cooling down for a while, playing the rest of his front nine in even par. He made birdie at 10 and again at 12, before he realised there was a gold medal to be won. As several players got in each other’s way as they squabbled for Rahm’s vacated lead, Scheffler stepped over the tangled mess of bodies.
He reeled off birdies across 14 to 17, with the latter the signature moment. Having gone left off the tee into the rough, he gouged out a stunning eight-iron that plopped onto the green and rolled to win 17 feet of the hole. He poured in the putt and pumped his fist.
Tommy Fleetwood led the challenge, and birdied 16 to tie Scheffler for the lead. But when he went left off the 17th tee, he couldn’t find the green and made bogey. A closing par on 18 meant he had to settle for silver.
“I take tremendous pride coming over here representing my country”, said Scheffler about his podium tears, before he was asked to delve a little into his own family’s history.
“My Mom is Italian and my Dad is German. We’ve been here a few generations. My Grandad fought in the Korean War. I learned from a young age to take my hat off and put my hand on my heart for the national anthem. I am proud to be an American.”
Perez’ outrageous finish was enough for solo fourth, with Nicolai Hojgaard seventh behind Rahm and McIlroy. Tom Kim of South Korea finished eighth: an Olympic medal would have made him exempt from his national military service.
So while this event may not have meant as much to anyone as it did to Tom Kim, it still meant a lot to everybody else.
“This week has felt like one of the biggest tournaments in the world, to be honest”, said Shane Lowry after his round, signing for an even-par 71 to tie for 21st.
“The atmosphere this week is as good as any major I’ve played. It’s been incredible. The Irish fans have been unbelievable. Way more support than I thought I’d get, probably more than I deserved with how I played!”
During the course of the day, Hojgaard turned to McIlroy and told him it’s the best event he has ever played in.
“And he’s played a Ryder Cup”, said McIlroy. “I still think the Ryder Cup is the best tournament we have in our game. Pure competition. But I think this has got the potential to be right up there with it.
“When you think of how much a shitshow the game of golf is right now and you think about the two tournaments that might be the purest form of competition in our sport. We don’t play for money so it speaks volumes of what is important in sport, and I think every single player this week has had an amazing experience.”
It’s another week, mind, from which McIlroy comes away believing it should have been better.
