Classy performances delivered
Golf held its own in tokyo in the face of tough tests, and came through smiling
THE golf competitions, for men and women, at the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games provided great excitement and joy, mixed with pain and anguish, just as great sports festivals do.
Contrary to the naysayers, who wrote off the golf competition even before it started with the men’s tournament at Kasumigaseki Country Club, citing everything from a wrong format to the pandemic on why things would not work, the event – one of 33 sports disciplines at the Tokyo Games – delivered big time.
It was nice, it was timely and it was gracious in its deliverance.
The beauty of it was that golf stood out in both the men’s and women’s events. A new Olympic record 61 was set by silver medalist Rory Sabbatini of Solvakia in his fourth and final round and the United States’ Nelly Korda matched the women’s mark with a 62 in her second round. She was widely expected to go on and win the gold medal from there, and she did.
This was golf’s second Olympics after being readmitted at the Rio Games in 2016. It followed an absence from the global showpiece of more than 100 years.
At the XXXI Olympiad in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in 2016, things did not go as well as some of the more fancied names thought they might. And as expected, this has led to calls for the “accepted” format
– a standard individual stroke play tournament over 72 holes – to be scrapped in favour of teams made up of two players (or three).
Thankfully, to date, these whims of some of the sore losers have not been granted.
But with the noises made on the eve of the Tokyo event and during the Games themselves, it cannot be taken for granted that changes will not be brought in for golf at Paris 2024 – and that indeed, the format will not be altered to suit a certain few.
They might well gain traction, given the supposedly “respected” media mouthpieces currying favour with one of the biggest Tours – not necessarily the cleverest, but rather one of the biggest – as they continue to lobby for it .
If the International Olympic
Committee, who have developed the mechanics on how golf works at the Games with the International Golf Federation, do opt for a change in format they will be depriving some of the smaller nations at the Olympics a fair chance of winning.
Golf was showcased at its best by the unlikely, but now famous, upsets of Solvakian Rory Sabbatini taking silver in the men’s event and C.T. Pan taking home a bronze for Chinese Taipei.
Xander Schauffele of Team USA won the gold medal, but not before he birdied the 71st hole of the tournament and salvaged a par at the last for a one-stroke win on 18-under 266.
Pan’s achievement was made all the more memorable by putting paid to the aspirations of six others in a seven-way playoff that featured no less than three Major championship winners
– Collin Morikawa of the US, Northern Ireland’s Rory Mcilroy and hometown favourite Hideki Matsuyama. Also in the playoff were Englishman Paul Casey, Chilean Mito Pereira and
Sebastian Munoz of Columbia.
Korda, it should be mentioned, arrived in Tokyo as the favourite to win the gold medal, if only because she is the world number one and has played the best golf in the women’s game this year.
But even then, no one saw that 62 coming. Were it not for the double-bogey on the last hole of the day, a birdie would have given her a round of 59 and that would tied the only 59 in the women’s game – registered by Annika Sorenstam, some two decades ago.
A 17-under 267 total was good enough for a one-shot victory.
Mone Inami of Japan won the silver after a playoff with New Zealand’s Lydia Ko.
The tournament was also marked with a hole-in-one by Morocco’s Maha Haddioui.
Malaysia’s two Olympians from Rio, Gavin Green and Kelly Tan, both came through on merit again, albeit not challenging for medals.
Green finished in a tie for 57th, while Tan was joint 34th, closing out the tournament with the low round yesterday – a seven-under 64.
It was also her best round of a season that has been loaded with struggles thus far.
The Olympics are there to be enjoyed, the medals aside, and that is why it is difficult to understand how some outlets still chose to talk of golf ’s “bronze medal playoff chaos”, making it golf ’s “greatest team event (Ryder Cup-style)” and maybe Jin Young Ko and Inbee Park “carrying” Si Woo Kim and Sung-jae Im to a medal.
Golf held its own in Tokyo. It proved that with this format it can still deliver.
And it did.