Olympics 2024: Gaby Lopez credits Novak Djokovic(!) for three late birdies to jump on leaderboard

SAINT-QUENTIN-EN-YVELINES, France — Mexico’s Gaby Lopez cited one of the greatest players ever as motivation for her bounce-back during the first round of the women’s golf competition at the Olympics. Not Mickey Wright or Nancy Lopez or even Annika Sorenstam. Not even Tiger Woods or Jack Nicklaus.

Try Novak Djokovic, the all-time leader in major championships in men’s tennis.

Lopez found herself floundering mid-round Wednesday at Le Golf National, with a bogey at the par-5 ninth and another bogey after barely missing her drive at the 12th. But she rallied with three birdies on the final holes to finish her day at two-under-70 and in a tie for third after 18 holes.

“Novak Djokovic says it all the time: ‘It's not how or what we have or what we get, it's how we react,’” she said. “I made a really hurtful mistake and 12 is just really hard, and you know, mistakes are going to come.

“You’ve just got to stay calm and kind of talk to yourself very nicely and very kindly.”

The challenging conditions at Le Golf National with winds gusting nearly to 20 miles per hour led to a change in the course setup on six holes, including the ninth, which was shortened from 466 yards to 443 yards. There, Lopez’s 240-yard drive barely rolled into a pond on the left side of the hole. Lopez said the course rewards precision and patience more than power.

“The golf course plays very challenging, especially off the tee,” said Lopez, who is ranked 66th in the world and is top Mexican player in the field. “You have curved fairways and it's really easy to run through them. You’ve got to be very specific of the line off the tee.

“But everyone’s playing the same golf course.”

After dropping to one over through 12 holes, Lopez made birdies on 16, 17 and 18, reaching the closing par-5 with 3-wood, 6-iron and two-putting from 41 feet. The turnaround, she said, was a little bit of an internal pep talk.

“It's hard, and the self-talk is huge,” she said. “You’ve just got to stay calm and kind of talk to yourself very kindly. … It's really easy to kind of let yourself down when it's really difficult. You’ve just got to cheer on yourself all day long. You gotta be optimistic, you gotta think that good things are coming your way and turn everything that comes your way into a positive, and we'll see.”

It also helped seeing a fair number of Mexican flags in the large crowds that lined the fairways at Le Golf National. “I'm so happy to see so many here,” she said. “That's what we are known for. It's the passion we have for our country.

“For sure, I felt them out there. It’s so motivating when you’re feeling a little down and having them cheer, it kind of pumps you up.”

But it was a Serbian’s commitment to positive thinking that resonated with Lopez the most. Eariler this week, Djokovic won the Olympic gold medal, the one championship in men’s tennis he had yet to claim. He reportedly told his Team Serbia teammates after defeating Carlos Alcaraz in the final, “This is my fifth games, I'm 37 years old, I've never played a final until now, and I want you to believe that nothing is impossible. To be the best version of yourself every day, not only in competitions."

Lopez, who now finds herself in a five-way tie for the bronze medal, says that self-belief wasn’t just about what happened today.

“It’s not work that I’ve done this week,” she said, after finishing with five birdies and ranking third in the field in strokes gained/putting. (She made 95 feet of putts for the day, including nearly 25 feet in her last three holes.) “I think calmness and patience pays off today, next month, in six months, in a year. It's just a matter of how you train yourself to kind of be optimistic even in tough conditions, and obviously it turned around pretty quickly for me.

“It's not about just the outcome for me. It's actually what it gives me and how much I can inspire the next generation.”

Djokovic couldn’t have said it any better.