SAINT-QUENTIN-EN-YVELINES, France — This stoic, reserved and unflappable Scottie Scheffler is more emotional than you might think. Did you know he cried when he won the Masters, too?
I took a “bathroom break” in Augusta to have some alone time, and “I cried a lot,” he admitted.
He said he was emotional earlier this week, from the benches of the U.S. women’s gymnastics team receiving its gold medal. So the significance of what Scheffler accomplished Sunday at Le Golf National was never lost on him, before or after he had a gold medal around his neck. That reality was illustrated by the incomparable sight of the world’s No. 1 golfer shedding tears and wiping his face on the podium while wearing a gold medal and hearing the “Star-Spangled Banner” ring out around the 18th green.
“I’m extremely proud to come here and represent my country,” Scheffler said. “It was very emotional to be on stage as the flag was raised and the national anthem was sung.”
It wasn’t a golf moment, but an Olympic moment that took place on a golf course.
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This sport is not yet accustomed to this kind of thing. In the United States, we will not consider Scheffler an Olympic hero, because we already know him as a top professional golfer.
What Scheffler did Sunday, though, was an Olympic heroic performance. That he would be on the podium Sunday seemed unlikely all afternoon. He came in four shots behind the leaders. He had to start fast, and he did, with three birdies. But it seemed like everyone at the top of the leaderboard was riding high through the first nine holes.
Then two things happened. Scheffler started playing a little better, and all the other medal contenders started playing a lot worse. Scheffler shot a 6-under-par 29 over the final nine, birdieing four straight holes.
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However, five more events had to occur in addition to Scheffler’s course record 62 for him to win the gold medal at 19 under.
And they all did.
Spaniard Jon Rahm, who led by four shots at one point, made a mistake, finishing 4 over par over the last nine holes and out of contention at 15 under par. Ireland’s Rory McIlroy had to calm down and make a few big mistakes, which he did. Japan’s Hideki Matsuyama was birdie-free over the last six holes, keeping him at 17 under par.
Scheffler’s American teammate Xander Schauffele also had to avoid doing what he’s been doing lately in that final round. Schauffele uncharacteristically collapsed at the end and was out of contention. Then, finally, Britain’s Tommy Fleetwood had to miss a chip shot on the 17th hole, making bogey on the hole that dropped him to 18 under par and made the difference between gold and silver at the Paris Games while Scheffler was on the driving range.
That’s what the Olympics are all about. The pressure of that final round was palpable on the fairways, greens and crowded galleries of the course. Scheffler won because he took the lead at that point, when others fell back.
It couldn’t get more Olympic than that, could it?
It’s similar to what Scheffler marveled at after watching the U.S. women’s gymnastics team.
“They compete for years and years and years,” he said earlier this week. “For some of them, this might be their only Olympics. For a tournament to be this big every four years is really tough. If I had a bad week this week, I could take a week off and have another great opportunity to prove to myself that I can do it under the brightest lights.”
Golf is one of those Olympic sports, like basketball or tennis, where success at this stage can raise an athlete’s profile. But usually that profile has already been built elsewhere.
We never think of Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, LeBron James, Andy Murray or even Schauffele first as Olympic heroes, even though each of them was. It’s different for sports that otherwise wouldn’t get their due. Every four years, we celebrate a Mark Spitz, a Mary Lou Retton, a Carl Lewis, a Michael Phelps, a Simone Biles or a Katie Ledecky, and then we do it again four years later. These are the heroes we associate with the Olympics in our country.
And they will never be the golfers we see on television every weekend.
The Olympics are good for golf, though. I don’t know how much the traveling circus of professional golf realized that until this week. The 2016 tournament in Rio was too new. The Tokyo tournament was held during the COVID pandemic.
This week, however, I found the right place. It was in a desirable location – Paris, Am I wrong? – and this on a renowned course that recently hosted a Ryder Cup. There is no excuse for the best players not being there, and a field of exceptional players was placed in front of an enthusiastic and wonderful crowd that waved flags, sang and cheered for four days.
“If you don’t enjoy those moments,” Fleetwood said, “then you’re not going to get much joy out of the game of golf.”
“We’re not winning anything this week,” said Australian Jason Day, who made his Olympic debut here. “We’re winning a medal. I think it brings out something deeper. … It means something more than just money to us. It was a real eye-opener. I really enjoyed representing something bigger than myself.”
Scheffler too. His play on Sunday bears witness to this. His tears bear witness to this.
Contact Gentry Estes at [email protected] and on X (formerly known as Twitter) @Gentry_Estes.
