Fun facts about Olympic golf, a sport where 10 countries have medaled but the U.S. dominates
Golf is an Olympic sport for the fifth time.
The American contingent at the 2024 Summer Games is made up of four men -- Scottie Scheffler, Xander Schauffele, Collin Morikawa and Wyndham Clark -- and three women -- Nelly Korda, Lilia Vu and Rose Zhang.
The men's competition is up first at Le Golf National, which also hosted the 2018 Ryder Cup. They start Thursday, Aug. 1 and the top three finishers will be on the podium getting their medals on Sunday, Aug. 4.
Then it's the women's turn, and they start Wednesday, Aug. 7 and conclude on Saturday, Aug. 10.
For a closer look at golf in the Olympics, check out this list.
Golf joined the Olympics in 1900
The 1900 Games in Paris are considered the second edition of the modern-era Olympics. It was there that golfers first competed for gold, silver and bronze medals.
The men's medalists were Charles Sands, USA (gold), Walter Rutherford, Great Britain (silver) and David Robertson, Great Britain (bronze) while the women's medalists were Margaret Abbott, USA (gold), Pauline Whittier, USA (silver) and Daria Pratt, USA (bronze).
Abbott went down in history as the first American woman to win a gold medal in the Olympics in any sport.
Compiegne Club, about 30 miles north of Paris and known for its "postage-stamp" greens, hosted the golf competitions then and was one of just 25 golf courses that existed in France in 1900. The golf course was closed for good in 2017.
Golf in 1904 was for men only
Pictures of the USA Team from the 1904 Summer Olympics hosted at Glen Echo Country Club!
Team USA: Edward Cummins, Kenneth Edwards, Chandler Egan, Walter Egan, Robert Hunter, Nathaniel Moore, Mason Phelps, Daniel Sawyer, Clement Smoot, Warren Wood pic.twitter.com/WwwkIpGPRW— Glen Echo CC (@GlenEchoCC) July 8, 2024
In 1904, the Olympic Games were staged in St. Louis but this time, the women's competition was dropped. Instead, the 1904 games consisted of an individual men's tournament and a team men's tournament.
George Lyon, Canada (golf), H. Chandler Egan, USA (silver) and Burt McKinnie, USA (bronze)/Francis Newton, USA (bronze) won the individual medals. Organizers also switched to match play for the 1904 games.
In the team portion, American teams made up of regional golf associations won all three medals. Individual silver medalist Egan won a team gold and bronze co-medalists Burt McKinnie and Francis Newton won team silver medals.
There were 77 golfers in the 1904 Games, with 74 of them Americans. The other three were Canadians.
Glen Echo Country Club was the host venue. It was the first golf course built in St. Louis and the first golf course built west of the Mississippi. Glen Echo's website also notes that the private golf course is the "oldest, continuously operating Olympic venue in the world."
After 112-year hiatus, golf returned in 2016
The 2016 Games saw the return of golf and host Brazil built a new course for the competitions. This time, golf was two individual stroke-play, 72-hole, four-round events.
“It’s the end of a long journey,” International Golf Federation president Peter Dawson said about the sport's return to the Olympic program. “We’re beginning a new one.”
The top four golfers in the world ranking withdrew from the Brazil Games. There was a major issue with the Zika virus at the time.
Justin Rose, Great Britain (gold), Henrik Stenson, Sweden (silver) and Matt Kuchar, USA (bronze) won the men's medals. Korea's Inbee Park (gold), Lydia Ko, New Zealand (silver) and Shanshan Feng, China (bronze) took home the medals on the women's side.
2020 Olympics were staged in 2021 after global pandemic
After the Zika virus concern in 2016, the COVID pandemic affected the 2020 Games in Tokyo, forcing them to be postponed a year.
In 2017, the membership at host venue Kasumigaseki Country Club voted to change its policy so as to start including women, which kept the club from being stripped of hosting the golf competitions.
Xander Schauffele, USA (gold), Rory Sabbatini, Slovakia (silver) and C.T. Pan, Chinese Taipei (bronze) won the medals. Pan survived a seven-way playoff for the third-place spot. On the women's side, Nelly Korda, USA (gold), Lydia Ko, New Zealand (silver) and Japan's Mone Inami (bronze) won the medals. Ko became the first woman to win a second medal.
The U.S. contingent in 2020 was Xander Schauffele, Collin Morikawa, Justin Thomas and Patrick Reed as well as Nelly Korda, Jessica Korda, Danielle Kang and Lexi Thompson.
U.S. leads all-time Olympics golf medal count
This article originally appeared on Golfweek: Fun facts about Olympic golf, a sport where 10 countries have medaled but the U.S. dominates
