She’s contending for an Olympic golf medal — with a hole in her shoe?

SAINT-QUENTIN-EN-YVELINES, France — Most players in the Olympics field are exhausted by how firm Le Golf National is getting in these sunny, arid afternoons. But Ashley Buhai loves it. The last thing she wants to see is a wet golf course. That’s because she has a hole in her left shoe. 

It’s not obvious, with her white socks blending in with her white shoes, but there’s a healthy gap gauged out of the leather, maybe the size of two quarters, giving her fifth little piggy some room to breathe. Because that little piggy has been through some stuff. 

Rewind seven weeks ago when Buhai woke up for an early tee time at 4:30 a.m. She turned the lights on in her rental home and was moving around the bed when everything but her left pinky toe made it. She heard the thud, felt the shooting pain and looked down. 

“It was like that,” she said Thursday, sticking out her pinky finger at a cringy angle. 

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Buhai is a grinder, though — a 35-year-old journeywoman from South Africa who took 16 years as a pro to break through on her immense talent, winning the 2022 Women’s British Open in a four-hole playoff. Buhai taped that sucker up, popped some painkillers, carded a one-over 73 and made the cut the next afternoon. 

“If it was stupidity or bravery, I don’t know,” she said. “But, yeah, to grind through that, it was, if I can say so myself, pretty impressive.”

Buhai ignored doctor’s orders two weeks later and returned at the Evian Championship, a major held about six hours from Paris. She withdrew after just two holes. Then she took another three weeks off and showed up at the Olympics. Through 36 holes, she’s five back of the lead, three back of the podium and praying for blue skies.

“You think [it’s just] your baby toe,” she said, “but it’s amazing how much you need it, especially in golf.”

Buhai swings right-handed, so that left foot is her lead foot. The weight-bearing of every lash at the ball ends up there, and the rigid leather puts pressure on her damaged piggy. In June, she had to splay her left foot open in the stance and take a quick step forward after contact. 

Luckily, rest has done her injury some good. Ruining the special shoes decorated with South Africa’s flag and colors is just a cost of doing business. Except by the time Buhai arrived in Paris with holes in her shoes, her golf clubs were stuck in Philadelphia. About 30 hours before the first round was set to begin, Buhai’s clubs were circling the City of Love from arrondissement to arrondissement.

“I watched my AirTag go around Paris until 1:30 on Tuesday morning,” she said. “I got on a 6:30 a.m. bus to get there to try to sort it out and be like, Hey, I think this person has taken my clubs home with them.”

Finally, around noon on Tuesday, her sticks arrived. Around noon Wednesday, she opened with a birdie. By noon on Thursday, she was in a podium position. Around that same time Friday, she’ll tee off in one of the final groups.

If the Olympics was two weeks ago, Buhai isn’t sure she would have been able to compete. Which isn’t to say this week has been easy for her: She’s still a couple weeks from feeling normal again and said there was plenty of pain finishing out her opening round.

“It’s great to be able to feel like I can hit the golf ball again,” she said Thursday, and then offered justification for the little piggy references in this article:

“Yesterday [when I was done] it looked like a little sausage, but it felt good this morning.”