The 2024 Men’s Olympic golf event has reached its final day, with three medals set to be awarded Sunday evening at Le Golf National. But what are the Olympic golf playoff rules in the event of the tie? It’s a little more complicated than regular pro golf events, but we can help with the details. Here’s what you need to know about a potential Olympic golf playoff in Paris.
Olympic Golf playoff format
The final-round leaderboard at the 2024 Olympics is stacked, with droves of star players within a few shots of the lead, including Xander Schauffele, Jon Rahm, Scottie Scheffler, Rory McIlroy and more. Given that, a playoff is entirely possible.
First off, any golf playoff at the 2024 Olympics would be contested across three holes at Le Golf National: the 168-yard, par-3 16th; the 480-yard, par-4 17th; and the 471-yard, par-4 18th.
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Unlike at a PGA Tour tournament where only one winner needs to be determined in a playoff, the Olympics need to identify three winners for gold, silver and bronze medals.
So a few different scenarios could arise. Should two players be tied for 1st at the end of regulation, they would compete in a playoff with the winner earning the gold medal and the loser earning silver.
If there are three players tied for the lead, medals would be awarded based on how they finish in the playoff, with third place getting bronze.
But more complicated scenarios exist. For example, there could be a clear winner at the end of the day with several players tied for second. In that event, the winner takes gold and the players tied for second would fight in a playoff for silver and bronze.
How would Olympic playoff tie-breaker work?
Should any potential playoff still be undecided at the end of the first three playoff holes (16, 17, 18), the remaining players would continue playing those holes in order until all medal winners are determined.
Past Olympic golf playoffs
Despite golf having only rejoined the Olympic Games in 2016, there has already been an Olympic golf playoff.
It occurred at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021. At the end of regulation Schauffele was alone at the top of the leaderboard as the gold medal winner, and Rory Sabbatini was in solo second, which earned him silver without a playoff. But there were a whopping seven players tied for third.
Those seven players — McIlroy, Collin Morikawa and Hideki Matsuyama among them — competed in a seven-way playoff, with C.T. Pan eventually coming out victorious as the bronze medal winner.
