Scottie Scheffler leaves Olympics with both gratitude and gold

The world No. 1 Scheffler has been blistering sizzling for months, successful six instances, together with a second inexperienced jacket, and solely lately being overshadowed by Xander Schauffele, who clipped Scheffler for 2 main wins, on the PGA Championship and The Open Championship. The truth that it was Scheffler, and never Schauffele, that entered these Paris Video games because the betting favourite to assert gold was telling sufficient; Scheffler was nonetheless the person to beat.

And although the flatstick didn’t cooperate early, Scheffler hung round, yielding putt-reading duties to his caddie, Ted Scott, halfway by way of Friday’s second spherical and ready for his second to strike. With the leaders at arm’s size for a lot of the competitors – 4 pictures after Thursday, then 5, then 4 – Scheffler almost held on too lengthy. Fiery Spaniard Jon Rahm got here out working on Sunday, barreling by way of the primary 10 holes with six birdies to hurry 4 strokes away from the sphere – and 5 of Scheffler. However Rahm instantly imploded, all his momentum from a current breakthrough LIV Golf victory and T-7 at Royal Troon seemingly extinguished in a matter of 4 holes.

Rahm three-putted the par-3 eleventh from 32 ft, then tugged a tee shot on the par-4 twelfth that led to a missed par save from 10 ft. Two holes later on the par-5 14th, the uncommon reprieve on Le Golf Nationwide’s closing 9, Rahm needed to lay up simply 92 yards after discovering a juicy lie off the tee, and his 4-footer for bogey didn’t fall, capping a four-hole stretch of 4-over golf that noticed Rahm go from a cushty result in a shot off the rostrum.

“I’ve been saying all week that I’d know the way a lot this implies when the event was over,” Rahm mentioned afterward. “Typically you recognize whenever you win, however you positively know whenever you don’t win it, and this simply stings on a special emotional degree. Hurts proper now greater than I anticipated. It’s onerous to let my nation down in that means; had it beneath management and simply let it go.”