SAINT-QUENTIN-EN-YVELINES, France — Forgive yourself if you haven’t been paying attention to Esther Henseleit. She wasn’t exactly expecting to find herself with an Olympic medal, either. Even as it was being placed around her neck.
The new face of German golf, who rallied to finish second behind Lydia Ko and take home the silver medal with a seven-birdie final round 66 at Le Golf National, became the first woman from continental Europe to win an Olympic medal in golf. Fact is, Henseleit, who turned pro at 20 in 2019 with a plus-7 handicap, is golf’s equivalent of a five-tool player. She hits for distance, is accurate with her irons, putts with confidence, is aggressive with purpose and knows that sometimes a smile is your best defense against pressure. So is not thinking too much about how you are about to make history when you are precisely about to make history.
“To be honest, not really,” Henseleit said when asked when or if she ever thought about an Olympic medal during a final round that began with her trailing 12 players. “I was so far back coming into today, and I had a great start, and after nine holes, I looked at the leaderboard and I think I was maybe in second, and I was more surprised. But I was always saying to myself, they can still make a lot of birdies.
“I knew I just had to keep playing aggressive, playing my own game. On the back nine, I managed to make some great pars and then to finish birdie, birdie is incredible. But even then, I thought they might still get past me, and I don't know what's going to happen. So it’s not sunken in yet. I think I'll need a few days.”
For the week, Henseleit led the field in birdies and was ranked second in strokes gained/off the tee and strokes gained/approach. No less impressive, with a medal on the line on Saturday, she birdied the stout, uphill par-4 17th and hit her longest drive of the week on the reachable par-5 18th. The latter left her barely 140 yards in on the par 5, and the routine two-putt for birdie mader her the leader in the clubhouse 45 minutes before Ko came home with gold.
Henseleit couldn’t, or wouldn’t believe the medal was hers until those closing holes, so much so she didn’t even take a break to roll some putts or hit some practice balls in case of a playoff. She was, in a way, no more stressed after her incredible round than she was during it.
“After my birdie on 17, I was really calm,” she said. “Going down 18, I managed to actually enjoy everything, to look at the crowds.”
Prior to this Olympic moment, Henseleit’s biggest wins were the Magical Kenya Open on the Ladies European Tour, which she won twice. She was both Rookie of the Year on the LET and winner of the Order of Merit in 2019. Her caddie and coach is Reece Phillips, who also happens to be her fiancé.
“Sitting in the clubhouse, knowing that I had a medal, and then to share it with my fiancé, that’s definitely special,” she said.
Making things a little more calm for Henseleit was how the leaders weren’t making the birdies that she did, and as all the more experienced medal contenders drifted away but one, Henseleit found herself actually pleasantly rooting for the woman who would win the gold.
“We were saying, if there's one person who I would want to finish in front of me, it's probably Lydia,” Henseleit said. “There are some players that you know they are not going to mess up coming down the last two, and she is definitely one of them. I was just kind of happy sitting there enjoying my silver medal.”