Olympics 2024: Is golf's global interest best served by stars winning medals or underdogs?

SAINT-QUENTIN-EN-YVELINES, France — What happens when you get exactly what you’ve asked for and then it turns out it isn’t what you really needed? This is the particularly knotty conundrum golf finds itself in at the halfway point of Olympic men’s tournament at Le Golf National.

Because while organizers, and quite frankly the International Olympic Committee, are likely chuffed to see a leaderboard with some of the most recognizable players in the game vying for medals, the growth of global golf seemingly begs for a player from a smaller, golf-developing country to snare one of the three medals being awarded on Sunday.

As Antony Scanlon, executive director of the International Golf Federation, offered early in the week, “To me, success is … at the end [of the men’s and women’s tournaments] there are six different medalists, hopefully from six different countries because that shows that diversity of our game.”

Through the halfway point of the men’s event, the top 10 represents 10 different countries, and while the three-way tie at the top involves three proven elite golfers all ranked in the top 15 in the world—Hideki Matsuyama, Tommy Fleetwood and Xander Schauffel— there are a couple in the mix from smaller golfing countries: Thomas Detry of Belgium and Joaquin Niemann of Chile.

There’s not going to be a concern that either Japan, Great Britain or the U.S needs an Olympic medal to jump start its interest in golf, but a medal for Belgium, Finland, Argentina, Germany, Italy or even Chile might have farther-reaching effects. As Niemann not so subtly put it, in Chile “they know more what's a gold medal than a golf tournament [win] for sure. I feel like only 2 percent of Chile know what the PGA Tour is or what LIV Golf is, and the other 98 percent don’t. I feel like they all know, probably 100 percent of them, know what the Olympics are.”

Fortunately for the smaller golfing nations, a bogey on 18 by Fleetwood and a double from Matsuyama brought a chunk of the field within five shots of the lead by day’s end. Twelve players from 11 countries are in the neighborhood of gold. Of course, the three-way tie at the top also means they are also just that close to being shut out entirely of a spot on the medal stand.

“I think the closer we got to the Olympics, the more we actually realize how big this really is, especially the feeling you have when you see how many people are here,” said Detry after his second-round 63, matching the low round of the tournament. From neighboring Belgium, Detry heard the shouts throughout his round of the French crowd, and he could see the Belgian flags flying from other spectators. "We really don't have that many golfers. So bringing home a medal to the count would be incredible. But that's what I came here for.”

Detry grew up in Belgium’s Flanders region and got his early golf experience at the Golf Vlaanderen elite sports school. Said Emma Van de Rostyne with Golf Vlaanderen, “As a small golfing nation, it would be great if he could keep up this performance through to Sunday. A medal at the Olympics would significantly validate our development programs.”

Late in their rounds, both Sami Välimäki and Tapio Pulkkanen had Finnish hopes riding high before big numbers on the closing holes dropped them out of the top 10. “I feel like actually [the interest] was more than what I expected,” Välimäki said. “I would say it's quite a big thing. I didn't think that way, but all the people are asking, like, two, three weeks before, ‘Are you going there and what are you going to do?’ and that kind of stuff.”

Marika Voss from the Finnish Golf Union is clear that a medal would put golf distinctly in a different place in her country. While there are 155,000 registered golfers and some 200 courses, nearly every one public, in a country of just over five million people, golf is waiting for that next leap forward.

“Since becoming an Olympic sport, golf has taken big steps in Finland because being an Olympian or getting a medal in the Olympics, it's huge,” she said, noting that Välimäki was voted the country’s second-best athlete when he won the Qatar Masters in 2023. “If someone from Finland gets an Olympic medal, you can't miss it. It will be on every headline on every tabloid and, in every media there is.”

Of course, while a medal may draw headlines and parades in a small country, a clash of golfing powerhouses (throw Spain’s Jon Rahm into the mix at nine under) puts golf closer to center stage at the Olympics. Early on, when the IOC confirmed its interest in golf in 2009, the desire was to get the top players on board, including the most recognized athlete in the world at the time, Tiger Woods. Golf’s best in the men’s game have been slow to warm to Olympic golf, but they are here now.

In reality, a gold medal going for a second straight Olympics to Schauffele, the game’s current hottest player is, in its own way, no different than organizers wanting Simone Biles to win the gold in the all-around in gymnastics. The underdog story is interesting, but big box office demands stars. This Olympics for the first time in the men’s game has those stars, and the field is the strongest it has been in the three games since the sport’s return in 2016. The median rank for the field in the Official World Golf Rankings in the men’s field at Rio in 2016 was 101.5; this year it’s 81.

Whether golf in a global sense is better served by a medal stand featuring Detry, Välimäki and Guido Migliozzi as opposed to Schauffele, Matsuyama, Fleetwood or Rahm might be missing the point. It might not be so much a conundrum as it is a good problem to have. For the IGF’s Scanlon, who can point to increasing TV viewership, fans on site and even boosts to each player’s social media reach, the vision of success for golf in the Olympics is a little simpler.

“There’s been this evolution in players wanting to participate, wanting to represent their countries,” he said, noting that the IGF just added Nepal as its 152nd member federation. “Our church is broadening is how I like to look at it.

"So I think we're there, but we've just got to keep building on it, can't take it for granted."