3 leaders (and 3 surprises!) stand out at best Olympic golf event yet
Tommy Fleetwood in the second round of the Olympic Golf event.
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We’re 36 holes into the third Olympics of golf’s modern era and it already feels safe to say this is the best one yet. The star power in the field. The crowd support outside the ropes. And a golf course with enough volatility to keep fans (and, obviously, players) on their toes.
At the halfway mark, we’ve got three leaders and three surprises — let’s get to ’em.
3 LEADERS
1. Xander Schauffele has probably never entered a golf tournament with better vibes. He’s defending his Olympic gold medal from Tokyo, for one thing. Even better, he’s coming off a summer where he won two of the last three major championships. He hasn’t missed a cut since the 2022 Masters (yes, seriously) and hasn’t finished outside the top 20 at a major since then, either. And unlike Tokyo, he feels like he can get the full Olympic experience this time around.
“For me, Tokyo was really special, obviously, but there were no fans. The city was closed. I was stuck in my hotel room. Going out to eat dinner, seeing people everywhere, seeing fans everywhere chanting, it feels like I’m here for the first time,” he said. “I went to a swim match the other night, put things into perspective for me. It was very cool.” (Schauffele was blown away by the swimmers, wondering from the stands: “How long would it take me to do that, 45 minutes?”)
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So far, so good. Despite a couple iron shots he described as “skanky” and “clanky” to begin his first round and a bizarre ant ruling in Round 2, Schauffele has looked very much like himself in a 65-66 start. He’s fourth in the field in strokes gained on approach, second around the green and 12th in putting. That’s a dangerous combination.
“It’s a positioning battle coming out of that final stretch and all you’re trying to do is give yourself a chance on that back nine,” he said. He’s T1 at 11 under par; we like his chances to be there on that back nine.
2. Tommy Fleetwood has been surprising himself.
“I haven’t felt particularly comfortable with my swing all week,” he said after a second-round seven-under 64, echoing the same sentiment he’d expressed after the first. “But I’ve been doing the things that I know are right and I’ve put the ball in play a lot … and I think gradually as you keep hitting enough good shots, obviously you confidence build and you keep drawing on those feelings.”
Fleetwood has won here before; Le Golf National was the site of his 2017 French Open victory. To American fans, Fleetwood also is known for his close calls; he hasn’t won on the PGA Tour and has seven top-fives at majors without a win. But he acknowledged a gold would be quite special.
“I try and look at things through the eyes of like, Frankie, my son, at six years old,” he said. “If I had a gold medal … what an unbelievably special thing to have. I think being able to be a part of or one of all these unbelievable athletes that put their heart and soul into their chosen craft and a gold medal is the absolute pinnacle of what they do. I have an unbelievable respect for that, and I understand how special it is and how much it means. So I mean, ideally I would like both [a medal and a major] but you know, still, a gold medal would be something that I would be very proud of.”
Like Schauffele, Fleetwood is playing well across the board — he’s 9th in approach play, 4th around the greens and 10th in putting. And, like Schauffele, he’s T1 at 11 under par.
3. Hideki Matsuyama was having a strong season — a win at Riviera, a T6 at the Players, another sixth at the U.S. Open — but a MC-T66 back-to-back in Scotland is who we’d seen most recently. So it was somewhat surprising to see him burst into the lead with a Thursday 63. And it’s surprising to see him leading the field in putting through two rounds; he’s gained more than five strokes on the field on the greens and piled up 15 birdies.
Asked what feels good, Matsuyama insisted he’s keeping things simple.
“I have no thoughts when I’m playing. I just do my best moment by moment,” he said post-round. It’s working.
3 SURPRISES
1. Golfers weren’t sure what to expect from an Olympic crowd, but it definitely wasn’t this.
There’s a general theme emerging from competitors that’s something like this: Whoa.
“I think it’s taken everybody by surprise, like how amazing the crowds have been and what the atmosphere has been like,” Fleetwood said.
“I don’t know what I was expecting. I heard 30,000 a day, which is a lot. It’s a ton of people,” Schauffele said. “And the fact that there’s only 20 groups, the fans sort of — it’s very congested in the best way possible.”
“Big crowd. It was a lot of fun. They were cheering loud for us,” said World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler. “Was definitely not expecting that coming in. I didn’t really know what to expect but there’s definitely more people than I expected.”
“In general throughout the day the support was mind-blowing,” added Jon Rahm, who sits fourth at nine under.
“Unbelievable,” Rory McIlroy noted. “It was surprising. With so many events going on spread all across the city, for people to venture out here and to watch us play, it was a really cool atmosphere to play in.”
2. Scores are low, so there have been fireworks…
Lower than you might expect if, like many golf fans, your main exposure to Le Golf National was the chilly, windy, thick-roughed version put on display at the 2018 Ryder Cup. Three players are double-digits under par through two rounds. We’ve seen multiple rounds of 63. Three-quarters of the 60-player field are even par or better. In all, the course is playing to a stroke average just under 70.
3…except on the 18th hole, where there’s been disaster.
On Thursday the finishing par-4 played to a brutish scoring average of 4.4. On Friday that jumped to nearly 4.5, thanks in part to the two men at the top of the leaderboard as they played the finisher.
Matsuyama was at 13 under playing his 36th hole of the week; his tee shot found a nasty lie in the right rough, he laid up, hit his approach in the water and did well to escape with double bogey.
“It was a sad ending, but I’m glad that today was only the second day,” he said.
Fleetwood was forced to lay up, too, after a wayward tee shot. He hit his approach to 10 feet but missed that and settled for bogey to fall back into a three-way tie for the lead. It was a ho-hum bogey, the sort you could easily imagine the leader making coming down the stretch on Sunday, playing for gold. Or even for bronze.
“Definitely as the week goes on it becomes more of a mental challenge,” Fleetwood said.
We’ll be here watching eagerly as it plays out.
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