Sceptics and sadly there appear to be many in the golfing community who argue quiet vehemently golf should have no part of the Olympic Games.
Their premise is based on the belief that an Olympic gold medal is not the pinnacle of success in golf. Winning a Major championship is and will always be golf’s highest achievement. Therefore only sports where the pinnacle of success is an Olympic gold medal should contest the Olympics.
Quiet where this half baked theory comes from is unknown. Certainly Pierre de Coubertin when framing and outline his vision for the Modern Olympics back in the 1890’s made no mention of only opening the Games to those sports who believed an Olympic gold medal was the ultimate reward in their sport.
These sceptics would do well to dwell firstly on the site of Scottie Scheffler on the victory dais at Le National Golf Club in; Paris after his win. At the playing of the American national anthem he broke down and sobbed almost uncontrollably overcome with emotion at what it meant to him to win an Olympic gold medal for his country in the sport he loves. Try telling him, the world ‘s pre-eminent golfer his sport has no right to be at the Olympiads. And as an aside how many times have you seen Scottie Scheffler reduced to tears after winning a Major.
Then there’s the case of Rory McIlroy who was highly skeptical when he heard golf was being re-introduced to the Games in Rio in 2016. He promptly manufactured a fairly worthless excuse as to why he wouldn’t go to Rio. Eight years later after finishing 5th in Paris he claimed his Olympic experience was one of the most satisfying individual strokeplay events he’s ever played in, suggesting it wasn’t far short of a Ryder Cup experience. And sceptics want to deprive the game’s best players this unique experience of winning a medal for their country.
The last day of the Men’s competition in Paris was as dramatic and as exhilarating as any last day I can recall from Majors over the 20 or 30 years. When the final day started most of the 8 players ranked in Paris inside the world’s top 10 were in contention on that last day. All of them had their moments, not all of them especially memorable. Some went backwards, some leapt in to contention spectacularly like Rory McIlroy who birdied the first 5 holes of the back nine to get within 1 shot of the lead with 3 holes to play. John Rahm was playing roller coaster golf for most of the day but never far from the lead as was Tom my Fleetwood and Hideki Matsuyama.
In the end however the games number one player who silenced once again all the would be heirs to his throne. For the 7th time this year Scottie Scheffler emerged from the pack with his fail-safe brand of golf. Long and straight off the tee, peerless precision iron play and a superb display of putting.
How anyone who loves golf could not enjoy that final day spectacle is beyond me. If the Olympics have no place on the golfing calendar then surely the weekly PGA events that make up the bulk of the 45 week annual tour in the US should also be scrapped because they too don’t by any stretch of the imagination represent the pinnacle in golf. And ask Russell Coutts if his gold medal medal at the 1984 Olympics represented the pinnacle of his yachting career.
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