For the second straight Olympic Games, the United States have a gold medalist in men’s golf. After Xander Schauffele of San Diego, California won the gold medal for the United States at the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo in 2021, Scottie Scheffler of Ridgewood, New Jersey won the gold medal at the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris.
What Scheffler accomplished on Sunday was extraordinary. Heading into the fourth round, he was four strokes back of Schauffele and Jon Rahm of Spain. Then his birdie binge began. Scheffler birdied half the holes on the course in the final round as he birdied the first, second, third, 10th, 12th, 14th, 15th, 16th, and 17th holes. The Masters champion for 2024 went from -10 to -19.
The silver medalist was Tommy Fleetwood of Great Britain, who was alone in second place at -18. There was an interesting story surrounding Fleetwood’s television coverage in his home country of England. The BBC was heavily criticized from people on X for showing the fourth round of the golf tournament rather than the women’s cycling road race. I agree with BBC’s program decision because Fleetwood was in medal contention and deserved the television coverage wholeheartedly.
The bronze medal went to another Masters champion in Hideki Matsuyama of Japan. Matsuyama won the 2021 Masters title. The native of Matsuyama, Japan shot a four round score of -17. Meanwhile, France’s best hope, Victor Perez, was alone in fourth place and only three strokes back of Scheffler at -16.
As the 2024 Olympics have ended for the men, and beginning for the women, the International Golf Federation has confirmed that Riviera Country Club will host the men’s and women’s golf tournaments for the 2028 Olympic Games in Los Angeles. Riviera is the regular host golf course of the Genesis Invitational.
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