BlogOlympic Men’s Golf Competition Preview and Picks

So who is in the field?

Golf returns to the Olympics for the third time in the modern era. In the short time that Golf has been part of the Olympics, it’s become a unique event. It goes entirely against the grain for any event in professional Golf. No monetary reward for playing or even doing well in this event exists. Of the field of 60, only three get a prize, a hunk of metal to put around your neck. Some compare this to the Ryder Cup, which doesn’t give out prize money, but players not only receive travel compensation for participating but are also given a cash siphon to compensate for their time. Like the Ryder Cup, the goal is not to play for yourself but for your country. What makes the competition so different is there are only three prizes. In an event like the British Open, if you finish last, you get paid. The same goes for the PGA Tour; you get paid if you make the cut and finish last. But if four players are tied for the lead on Sunday next week, they will go into a sudden-death playoff in which one will win the Gold, silver, and Bronze Medal. But the four-way playoff loser gets nothing for his trouble other than knowing he finished 4th.

This week, the men are playing; next, the Women. Both contests comprise 60 players based on the World Rankings and Rolex Woman’s ranking.

32 different countries are represented in the men’s game. The United States has the most players, with four in the top 15 World Rankings. Beyond the top 15, each country gets a maximum of two eligible players. Twenty-four different countries have two players in the field.

What is the format?

It’s a 72-hole stroke-play format, just like the other tournaments worldwide. Everybody has an opinion on how this could be better, from a team event to a match-play to a Stableford format, but this is what the powers that be want. So, for Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, there is nothing different about watching this competition than watching any other tournament week after week.

The good news is that the International Golf Federation is looking at a proposal for a change in the 2028 Olympics played in Los Angeles. It’s already been announced that Riviera Country Club, the site of the Genesis Open, will have a third element added. The men’s and Women’s events would stay the same, but between them, 16 teams of men and women would represent their country, playing 36 holes with one round of foursomes and one round of fourball better ball. This would give Golf more of a team/country aspect in the Olympics. A decision on the new proposal could come as early as this week.

Why this week will be fun to watch

One crucial element will spark people’s interest in watching on Sunday. That is the format with only three prizes: a Gold medal, a Silver medal, and a Bronze medal. It’s the closest event in which it’s all about winning, and three players will achieve glory, while the other 57 will go home with nothing to show for their week. That will make it worthwhile to watch.

It’s a mindset we see little of in which only three players will get the prizes. Will those players leading on Sunday play conservatively, or will they be aggressive? And those going into the back nine, two, three, or four shots back, will have nothing to lose in shooting for the pins and trying to make as many birdies as possible to get them back in contention. This will spell a lot of excitement, so Sunday will be a great theater, especially if you have a bunch up on the leaderboard. Seven years ago, on the first try at Golf in the Olympics in Rio, the course was made for aggressive play. Justin Rose was the third-round leader, and he shot 67 in the final round to win by two, while runner-up Henrik Stenson shot 68. Going into the final round, Marcus Fraser was in third place, but a final round 72 dropped him down to T-5th, so poor Marcus made the trip to Brazil just for the hell of it. Matt Kuchar was T-7th in the final round and shot 63 to claim the bronze medal.

In 2021 Xander Schauffele led Hideki Matsuyama by a shot. Paul Casey and Carlos Ortiz were two back. Schauffele shot 67 in the final round to win by a shot over Rory Sabbatini, who was T-17th going into the final round and shot 61 to earn the Silver medal. While Ortiz shot a final round 78 to finish T-42nd, Matsuyama shot 69. In contrast, Casey shot 68 to finish in a T-3rd, along with C.T. Pan, Rory McIlroy, Mito Pereira, Sebastian Munoz, and Collin Morikawa, which created a seven-man playoff for the bronze medal. Pan won in the playoff by beating Collin Morikawa with a par on the four extra holes.

Another thing of interest is the age at which someone plays in the Masters and misses the cut, getting $15,000, or the U.S. Open and gets $10,000; they will be playing for nothing but a medal. So, in a regular tournament like the 2022 RSM Classic, Tyler McCumber went into the final round T-35th. A typical round would have earned McCumber about $25,000, but he shot 60 and finished T-4th, earning $288,000. But if this were the Olympics, McCumber would have had nothing to show other than the great round if this happened on Olympic Sunday.

So, if you shoot yourself out of the tournament on Thursday, it could be a challenge for the next three days. Another aspect of this week is that there is no prize money, just like the Ryder Cup. Now, most athletes playing in the Olympics are covered by their host country, and their expenses go down to Brazil. But that means these players are flying coach and staying at the Olympic Village. For guys like Scottie Scheffler, who are used to flying on private planes and staying in the best hotels or rented homes, and eating at Ruth Chris every night, I doubt very much that the organizing party is footing the bill for some of the expenses, so this could be an expensive week for players. They also have to pay their caddies, so at the end of the day, some players could be out thousands of dollars to play for their country.

How much playing for your country is worth the bother? For example, Emiliano Grillo played in the 3M Open and finished T-24th. For Grillo, after his Sunday round, it’s off to the airport to fly off to Paris, about a ten-hour flight, and then he will have to endure the 7 hour time change. But that is just the start of the problem; if Grillo is staying in the Olympic Village, 25 miles away, and will take 60 minutes to get to the golf course, that is also a hassle. For Grillo, once he plays in Paris, his reality is being 68th in the FedExCup rankings, so he is on the bubble to make the playoffs. So, on Monday, it’s onto a plane for Greensboro and playing in the Wyndham Championship, which will determine what happens in his future.   So, despite playing for the honor of your country, this may have gone too far.

So, how did all of this come about?

In the early 2000s, the organizations that run Golf have always wanted to be a part of the Olympics; people need to realize their reach, and they corner every part of the globe. The USGA and the R&A cover much of the world in North America, Europe, Australia, and Asia but have minimal reach into South America and Africa. The thought was that if they could get a berth into the Olympics, that would help grow Golf. So, starting in 2008, they did a full-court press to earn a spot in the Olympics.

But you have to think about what Golf was like. All of the leading tours, like the PGA Tour, European Tour, Asian Tour, Japan Tour, and Australian Tour, had time slots to accommodate the Olympics in July and August. The same goes for women’s tours; they could accommodate the Olympics. In 2009, the PGA Tour was drastically different. First, the schedule went from January to November, and the FedExCup playoffs began. However, the most critical element back then was that the playoffs ran in September, so there was plenty of time for the Olympics to be scheduled in July/August. So it was happy times when 2009 the Olympics were awarded with Golf. It was a piece of cake scheduling the 2016 games, but things have seriously changed since then. In 2018, the PGA Tour deemed it essential to finish up the season before football started. So, instead of finishing the season at the Tour Championship at the end of September, the schedule now has the Tour Championship finishing in the first week of September. So, with the schedule being truncated, it has been hard to schedule the Olympics, especially this year, with the Olympics being played halfway around the world in Japan. So for players, it meant getting from the British Open to Japan in two weeks, and then the week after the Olympics, world golf has the critical WGC-FedEx St. Jude Invitational in Memphis. So the problem is that there are too many good events right now, plus the travel to Japan makes this Olympics challenging. The Olympics being played in Paris this year has helped the scheduling.   In a perfect world, the Olympics could have been played the week after the British Open, but still, with a week off in between, it was fine. Many players stayed in Europe after the British Open; Xander Schauffele spent last week in Portugal on R&R with some practice.

Interesting storylines

The field comprises the top players in the Official World Golf Rankings, with each country getting two players. One stipulation is that a country can play if it has three or four players inside the top 15 of the rankings, which is why America has four qualified players.  Those four are Scottie Scheffler, Xander Schauffele, #5 Wyndham Clark, and #6 Collin Morikawa,.

So, the field is diverse, and some of the best golf courses are offered. In looking at some regulars on the PGA Tour, players like Patrick Cantlay, Sahith Theegala, and Russell Henley won’t play. Still, tour regulars like Viktor Hovland, Hideki Matsuyama, Tommy Fleetwood, and Tom Kim will play because they are from the countries of Norway, Japan, England, and Korea, which have fewer players. All four of these players have a great shot of winning a medal, along with others like Matti Schmid, who finished T-12th at the 3M Open. Thorbjorn Olesen, who won twice on the DP Tour at the Ras Al Khaimah in February, will be one of the representatives from Denmark who will be playing. Other European Tour winners from 2024, including Japanese Keita Nakajima, who in March won the Hero India Open. Also, a winner this year on the PGA Tour, Frenchman Matthieu Pavon, is in the field. Now, 30 players have never participated in the Olympics, while C.T. Pan, Fabrizio Zanotti, Ryan Fox, and Gavin Green played in both the Rio and Japan games.

Of the 60 players in the field, ten (Scottie Scheffler, Jon Rahm, Matt Fitzpatrick, Jason Day, Wyndham Clark, Shane Lowry, Collin Morikawa, Rory McIlroy, Hideki Matsuyama, and Xander Schauffele) have won major championships. And of those with some local knowledge, Alex Noren in 2018 and Tommy Fleetwood in 2017 won the French Open played at Le Golf National. There are many things to watch, and frankly, since the field is so good, don’t be surprised to see someone medaling that will be an underdog.

So what about the course?

• Le Golf National
• Versailles, France
• 7,174 yards     Par 36-35–71

Le Golf National’s Albatros course will host the Olympics for the first time. It has been the home of the French Open since 2002 and was the venue of the Radder Cup in 2018. It was designed by Hubert Chesnau and opened in 1990; it underwent extensive remodeling in 2017 in preparation for hosting the 2018 Ryder Cup. The course is on the outskirts of Paris on land surrounding the Palace of Versailles, once the home of Louis XIV. It is a public, inland-links/target-style course regularly ranked among the top five in Continental Europe. The course is dotted with links-style bunkers guarding vast fairways. However, there are also water hazards that are commonplace on American-style courses. The players love it, and it will be a perfect risk-reward venue for the Olympics.

The course will be different from when it hosted the 2018 Ryder Cup. Tournament officials made the fairways very tight, but they are considerably open for this week.

Who will the course favor?

The Albatross course was built on flat farmland and combines a links feel with American-style target golf. The course has wide undulating fairways, with links-style bunkering, water hazards, and artificially created sand dunes; it offers a stern test of golf. At the same time, long hitters have an advantage, and it’s a course that can be overpowered. However, in looking at the stats of the past eight winners of the French Open, the one trait that has been the key to winning is putting. Those who put well have won, which shows that good putters will have a good week.

Water hazards are present on eight holes, and wind is often a factor on this relatively flat course.

The weather looks like it won’t be a factor. During the championship, there will be mostly cloudy skies and temperatures in the mid-80s.

DraftKings tips

*Here are the guys that cost the most on DraftKings this week:

• Scottie Scheffler – $12,500
• Xander Schauffele – $11,600
• Rory McIlroy – $11,100
• Jon Rahm – $10,700
• Ludwig Aberg – $10,300
• Collin Morikawa – $10,200
• Shane Lowry – $9,800
• Viktor Hovland – $9,700
• Tommy Fleetwood – $9,500
• Joaquin Niemann – $9,300
• Tom Kim – $9,200
• Alex Noren – $9,000

So DraftKings will have a game this week, but based on the projections, picking players will be very hard. A couple of things to realize: this week’s field is very diverse, and it’s going to take a bit of work and luck to maneuver. You have 60 players from 32 different countries. If you look at the field, this is the way the British Open should pick their field. 33 players are in the top 100 of the world rankings, but the next 11 players inside the top 200 have no real chance at medaling. After the next 15, only a few have a chance at that dream 72 holes to get them to the medal podium, other than possibly Abraham Ancer. After that, don’t like anyone else.

Now, there is no money involved; this is all for the glory of the country to bring home a medal. So, throughout 72 holes, you will have a lot of players that shoot themselves out of the running early. The big question is, when you pick a player who has no chance of winning, will he play hard over the last days or holes? If Rory McIlroy is out of the running after 36 holes, will he play hard over the weekend? That is the question you have to ask yourself when making your team: Will that player still play hard for you? A perfect example of this was in 2016 when Patrick Reed was clearly out of the running going into the final round but still played hard and shot 64 to bring him from a T-36th to a T-11th finish. On the other end of the spectrum, you must wonder how hard Gregory Bourdy played in his final round. He was in the running for a medal after 36 holes but shot a final round 72 to take him out of the running. In the final round, Bourdy shot a 73 and finished T-21st.  So you have to gauge all of that and pick players like Mito Pereira, who very little is known of.

Look at some of the scenarios from the 2021 Olympics. Rory Sabbatini was out of the running with a third-round 70 and was T-17th.  But he shot a final round 61 and shot up to second to win a silver medal. Then you had Carlos Ortiz going into the final round T-3rd and just a couple of shots back. But he shot a final round 78 and found himself finishing T-42nd.  Talk about playing hard on the weekend, Justin Thomas shot himself out of the tournament with opening rounds of 71-70. He played hard over the weekend to shoot 68-65 to finish T-22nd.  Colin Morikawa did a similar thing; after shooting 69-70, he was T-24th going into the weekend. He shot 67-63 to get himself into the playoff for the bronze medal, so anything is possible.

So good luck and have some fun.

The highest-priced player is Scottie Scheffler at $12,500. It makes sense; he has played well all year but has been struggling with his putter. He looked tired after finishing T-7th at the British Open and only earned 67.5 points. I say pass on Scheffler; too many others are playing better. One playing better and a better choice is Xander Schauffele at $11,600. He played great at the British Open, and I can see him continuing this trend and repeating his Gold medal winning from three years ago. Rory McIlroy at $11,100, is another tough pick. I can’t get him right. I felt he was not a great pick at the U.S. Open, and he almost won it. I thought he was a great choice at the British Open, but he missed the cut. Frankly, I am gun shy; after his British Open debacle, I have to wonder if he can get up for this week. But in looking at his record at Le Golf National, he played great during the Ryder Cup and was 3rd at the 2016 French Open and 4th in the 2010 French Open. So I leave it at that. Now, I do feel good about Jon Rahm at $10,700. He played great in the British Open, which carried over to the LIV Golf U.K., where he won. One other thing about Rahm and Le Golf National: in the Ryder Cup, he beat Tiger Woods in the finals, which is one of his happy memories. So, I am enthusiastic about Rahm this week. I can’t say the same about Ludwig Aberg at $10,300; he seems to struggle over the weekend, except at the British Open, where he didn’t play the weekend because he missed the cut. I say pass on him. I like Collin Morikawa at $10,200; this is a course he can do well on. He wasn’t great at the British Open, but he will be great this week. I am passing on Shane Lowry at $9,800. He played great other than a third-round 78 at Troon, but the dirty secret on Lowry is in six starts at the French Open at Le Golf National, Lowry has missed the cut three times, and his best finish is T-16th, so he doesn’t seem to like the course. Viktor Hovland at $9,700 is a big no for me; he missed the cut at the British Open as his game is still in a state of flux. Tommy Fleetwood at $9,500 is a yes for me despite his poor late play, including missing the cut at Troon. I like him because he won at Le Golf National in 2017, but buyer beware in his other five starts, he missed the cut and never broke par for a single round in those five starts. Joaquin Niemann at $9,300 is tough to figure out. He hasn’t played well since the spring, and frankly, he has struggled a bit in his last few LIV starts, but he was T-2nd last week in the U.K. start. Tom Kim at $9,200 is a no for me; he hasn’t played well since the Travelers and missed the cut at the British Open. Alex Noren at $9,000 is a big yes for me; he was T-10th at the Scottish Open and T-13th at the British Open. Also like that, he won the French Open at Le Golf National in 2018.

*Players in that $7,600 to $8,900 price range, which ones are worth the money?:

I like Hideki Matsuyama at $8,800, which is someone to consider; he has played ok this year, and Le Golf National will be perfect for his game.  The same goes for Thomas Detry at $8,300; he had his moments in 2024 and has played in five French Opens, finishing T-8th in 2019.  I like Byeong Hun An at $8,200 for one reason: because both of his partners won Gold medals at the Olympics.  He was T-13th at the British Open and is a great choice this week.  Matthieu Pavon at $8,000 is hard to figure out. Yes,, he is playing in front of his fellowh, who could play against him.  He was 5th at the U.S. Open and has a lot of experience playing at Le Golf National but has missed the cut four times in six starts.  Adrian Meronk at $7,800 is one to think of. He was 2nd at Houston in April.  He has played once in the French Open and was T-11th in 2022.

Some of the “bargains” this week at the Olympics?:

There are lots of undervalued players under $7,500. The first has to be Guido Migliozzi at $7,400. I like him because he won the French Open in 2022. I like Emiliano Grillo at $6,800. He has been consistent in 2024, and I feel he can do well this week. Matti Schmid at $6,400 is very cheap for what he has done. He was T-12th last week at the 3M Open, a course a lot like Le Golf National.