Get your popcorn ready. The Olympics has become an international shootout
Rory McIlroy plays his tee shot on the 1st hole at Le Golf National Saturday.
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SAINT-QUENTIN-EN-YVELINES, France — On Friday night, Thomas Bjorn took Nicolai Hojgaard and Thorbjorn Olesen out for dinner in Versailles. Bjorn is a European golf legend but is serving as team captain this week — an intermediary who helps make everything manageable for players in this abnormal setting.
Essentially, he’s a good vibes creator. Bjorn wanted to get the Olympians out of the hotel a bit, change things up, and to visit Le Limousin, a French bistro — one of his favorites.
Twenty-four hours later, you’d have to hope they’re back at Le Limousin eating the same meal because Team Denmark flipped the Olympics on edge.
Now, you may have already seen the leaderboard. You might see Spain, USA and Team Great Britain in the top three spots. You may see the single-name guys — Hideki, Rory and Scottie — all in the chase. But what Denmark did was simply get everyone thinking about the rest of the field. Hojgaard and Olesen arrived in the hotel lobby Saturday morning “with a different look on their faces,” Bjorn said. And the result?
Olesen shot 66 with a bogey. Hojgaard beat him by four, tying the course record 62, launching up the leaderboard. Making everyone think differently about what is possible tomorrow. Making them think about the objects in the rear-view mirror. Making them think about needing a par on that brutal 18th hole, the toughest on the property.
One of the most abnormal aspects of this tournament is that you can just about guarantee a playoff on Sunday evening. With the top three places needing to be settled in an orderly fashion — for the podium and for raising flags and the history books — a 62 from, uh, Alejandro Tosti is going to make things interesting. A 62 from Erik Van Rooyen could be golden. Wait, is a 61 possible, say, for Wyndham Clark, who shot that score at Pebble Beach in February? Check that — it was a 60 at Pebble. Someone going nuclear out here suddenly seems very possible.
“62, that was something up there on the leaderboard,” said our co-leader, Xander Schauffele, hands tight on the steering wheel. “Didn’t really see that, to be completely honest.”
We’re not really sure Nicolai did, either.
“I think I went out there just like there’s nothing to lose,” he said. “We are so far behind.”
And they were. But they aren’t now. Hojgaard is just three back.
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Eleven of the top 20 players in the world are competing this week and suddenly eight of those 11 are within four shots of the lead. But applying our 62 theory — a round two better than all the others is clearly out there — we’ve got at least 20 players who are a 62 away from a medal.
Tommy Fleetwood, settled into the Bronze position at the moment, was asked if a 62 like that is a “freak round.”
“It’s not a freak round. It’s a freakishly good round,” Fleetwood said. He would know a thing or two about Le Golf National, since he won the French Open here and starred in the Ryder Cup a year later.
“Today I don’t think I was capable of shooting that score with what I had. You just have to play with what you’ve got, and if I had gone out today and started firing and thought 62 is what I needed to do, I’d be nowhere near and I’d probably be worse off.”
But that’s the point. Thinking about 62. Scottie Scheffler, the No. 1 player in the world, is four back, but thinks a 62 is what it’ll take to win Gold. Rory McIlroy, tied with Scheffler, shot a 66 Saturday, his best round of the week, and already believes he needs to better it tomorrow. There are too many chasers.
Think back to three years ago, when another Rory, Mr. Sabbatini, showed up to Kasumigasecki Country Club for his final round in the Slovakian red, white and blue. With his wife caddying in brutally hot conditions, Sabbatini was pulling irons out of the bag to make it an easier walk. He also shot 61 — the easiest walk! — and leap-frogged everyone into Silver position.
Behind him, as has been well-documented, was a 7-man playoff for Bronze. A stacked one, too. One that still sticks in Collin Morikawa’s craw three years later, as he was the last man standing who didn’t win a medal, eventually losing to C.T. Pan. (Speaking of Pan, he’s among the group at seven under, six shots back of the podium.)
Through 54 holes, we have something mostly neat and orderly. A LIV golfer tied with a PGA Tour golfer for the lead. A clear, solo artist, nursing a two-shot Bronze lead. (Or is it a one-shot Gold deficit?) And a bunch of people like Jason Day (five back) ready to step on the gas.
“Closing for a medal is a lot more difficult than just finishing on a Saturday,” Day said. “I’m going to be pushing tomorrow. I need to try and win a medal. That’s my goal. And then there’s other guys that are kind of in the lead. They are going to be thinking a lot. There’s a lot more pressure on them. It’s totally understandable. But there’s a lot of stuff that can go wrong in those finishing holes. Fingers crossed I play those good tomorrow.”
He said it. Everyone’s thinking it.
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