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Eight years into the modern Olympic golf experiment, the event finally found its voice during a sweaty, giddy first round of these Games. In 2016, when golf returned to sports’ biggest stage after a 112-year absence, the soundtrack was howls of protest from traditionalists and mealy-mouthed excuses from the top players who refused to see the big picture (Rory Mcllroy later admitted the noisy concerns about the Zika virus were just a convenient alibi). The 2021 Tokyo Games were played in deafening silence with fans banished because of a global pandemic.

But on Thursday at Le Golf National, Olympic golf was embraced as never before. A crowd of 25,000 strong made the journey to a distant suburb to give the competition the juice it deserves, at last. The fans serenaded the players with cheers, chants and the occasional national anthem. Practitioners of the loneliest sport could finally feel in their bones that they are playing for something larger than themselves.

Of his opening tee shot, Min Woo Lee said, “I had kind of like a tear in my eye because I made the team and I’m representing Australia. I didn’t know I was going to react like that. But it was pretty cool. I think that just shows how much it means to me. I think a lot of people say, ‘Why is golf an Olympic sport?’ I think for myself: now I know why.”

Thorbjørn Oleson of Denmark, an eight-time winner on the European Tour, said, “It’s a very different atmosphere from any other tournament. To see all the different flags, to hear people singing their anthems, it gives you a little bit of goosebumps.”

Joaquin Niemann of Chile (who is in third place with a 65, two strokes behind leader Hideki Matsuyama), added, “It does feel more special than any other golf tournament.”

Complete 2024 Olympic Golf tee times for Friday's second round of the men's event, featuring Hideki Matsuyama, Xander Schauffele and more.

The post 2024 Olympic Golf Friday tee times: Round 2 groupings for men’s event appeared first on Golf.

One round is complete at Le Golf National, and some of the biggest stars in the game are atop the leaderboard.

The post Stars surge up leaderboard on Day 1 of men’s Olympic Golf competition appeared first on Golf.

We asked the team at Shot Scope to pull on-course data from their database of 350 million shots for Le Golf National, the venue for golf at the Olympic Games, to see how the amateur golfer plays the course.

Le Golf National is no stranger to hosting big events. The 2018 Ryder Cup took place on the Albatross Course where Team Europe was victorious.

Ryder Cup 2018 – Grand Stand” by Cutkiller2018 is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/?ref=openverse.

The French Open has been held at Le Golf National (on and off) since 199 but has been there every year since 2002 so we can see how the pros play the course compared to amateurs.

Three holes that will cause drama – 4, 17, 18

Despite many holes having some form of water feature, one of the hardest holes on the Albatross course does not have any.

The fourth hole, a long par-4, measuring at 486 yards in the 2023 French Open, played 0.17 strokes over par, making it the fourth-hardest hole of the week.

Check out the clubs Hideki Matsuyama used to take an early first-round lead at the Men's Olympic Golf tournament.

The post Hideki Matsuyama leads Olympic Men’s Golf with this club setup appeared first on Golf.

Keegan Bradley, the U.S. Ryder Cup captain, will join Stewart Cink, Justin Leonard and Kevin Kisner as Presidents Cup assistant captains.

The post Keegan Bradley named 2024 Presidents Cup assistant captain appeared first on Golf.

Titleist created more differentiation between the GT2 and GT3 fairways. The end result is two clubs geared for a wider range of golfers.

The post Titleist GT2 and GT3 fairway woods: 5 things you need to know appeared first on Golf.

How a club looks at address will make or break a testing session. If you need proof, just ask Titleist's metalwoods team.

The post Titleist shocked its tour pros with this outrageous GT design appeared first on Golf.

Titleist's all-new GT drivers employ several groundbreaking technologies that help it live up to some lofty standards.

The post Titleist GT2, GT3 and GT4 drivers: 7 things you need to know appeared first on Golf.

Every equipment launch is designed to invoke a sense of optimism in potential buyers. With that, Titleist believes its GT series (hello, generational technology) of fairway metals is a pronounced step forward from the TS (Titleist Speed) line.

Because Titleist isn’t one to loosely toss around superlatives and over-caffeinated marketing lingo, the promise of something demonstrably better is, at a minimum, intriguing.

We’ll get to the details in a moment but the tech story centers on essentially the same updates in the material and construction as the GT drivers.

At first glance, GT doesn’t look much different than TSR. That wasn’t by mistake. In fact, it was a key design objective. If you wanted to paraphrase feedback garnered from PGA Tour staff as, “Make it better, but keep it the same…”, that’s largely accurate.

In this case, better meant faster and higher without increasing spin and the status quo was, well, everything else (sound, feel, address profile).

After three generations of the Titleist Speed (TS) Project, the company’s metalwood franchise has a new name. The GT in Titleist GT Drivers stands for Generational Technology. It signals a generational shift in materials, construction and, as you would expect, performance.

To be fair, the bones of this story aren’t entirely dissimilar from nearly any other driver story I’ve written. With that, it’s understandable that golfers might look at GT and assume nothing (other than a couple of letters) has changed.

I get it but, at the same time, I roll my eyes a little when someone looks at GT and concludes it’s the “same ol’ Titleist.”

Looks can be deceiving.

That’s especially true with the Titleist GT drivers where plenty has evolved under the hood (and I suppose with the hood itself).

"To have a medal for the rest of your life would be very special," Masters champ Scottie Scheffler said. Here's what others are saying before Round 1.

If you can eliminate mishits and stupid shots I guarantee that you will break 90 during every round that you play. It’s really easy, just chose the correct club and keep all of your shots in the fairway. Hitting greens in regulation and misjudging your putts are the primary reason why its NOT EASY to break 80 or 70 . Weekend Warriors should be focusing on the elimination of Mishits and Stupid Shots to break 90.

The more time you spend practicing and playing golf with the proper swing, the better will be your chance of eliminating mishits. You may not see pros mishitting shots on TV as the producers focus on the perfection of the low scoring leaders. The higher scoring laggards are make their share of mishits and struggling to recover from the rough.

Mishit Elimination
By mishits, I’m referring to hooking and slicing your ball as well as missing the center of your club face (for toe or housel hits), topping it and hitting it fat or thin. We all make some of these shots but our goal is to eliminate or minimize them. Why not try:
-Using a consistent shot routine to improve your mental approach to golf.
–Practice with GOLFSTR+ to learn a straight arm backswing with a flat wrist for a square impact to eliminate slices, hooks, thin and fat shots.
–Plan to hit shorter shots, so that your 3rd shot on every par 4 will chip close to the hole.
-Be more strategic to miss every sand trap and pond on the course.
–Select one club lower in loft so that you can swing at 80% with MORE control.

Stupid Shot Elimination
By Stupid shots I am referring to avoiding those shots that have a 60% chance that they will get your next shot in trouble. It really is easy to hit a chip shot out of a poor lie or to aim a safe shot into the fairway instead of hitting up a tree line or between 2 trees. Hitting 200 yards over a pond is often a poor decision. You can always recall the poor shots that you should never have tried at the end of each round. Why not finish rounds shooting under 90 and enjoy the success of playing smart.

Don’t get frustrated and follow a poor shot with a Stupid Shot. The same thing holds true for putting. Ben Hogan said, “A shot that goes in the cup is pure luck, but a shot to within two feet of the flag is skill”. Be happy with your close misses and make sure that you sink the next putt.

Keegan Bradley has been named the fourth captain's assistant for the U.S. team at the upcoming Presidents Cup.

The third playing of Olympic golf (at least in the modern era) is upon us and all signs point to Paris being the best version yet.

The 2016 event in Brazil struggled as many top players backed out by using the Zika virus as a flimsy excuse. Five years later, Tokyo had a better field but didn’t quite deliver because of COVID-19.

The 2024 Games are here and there are no more excuses. It’s time for Olympic golf to gain some momentum.

There are 60 players in the men’s tournament which begins Thursday at Le Golf National, host of the 2018 Ryder Cup. Qualifying was through the Official World Golf Ranking, leaving a few key LIV players like Bryson DeChambeau on the sidelines. In reality, there are probably only about 20 guys with a legitimate chance of winning.

Still, it’s an International field with many of the top players representing their country. The top 15 world-ranked players are eligible for the Olympics with a limit of four players from a given country. Following that, players are eligible based on the world rankings, with a maximum of up to two eligible players from each country that does not already have two or more players among the top 15. This happens until the number of 60 athletes is reached.

This time of year – the last month of real summer – is P·SZN. It’s when TaylorMade can be counted on to release new models in its flagship P·Series. And while these late-summer releases are often familiar (there’s nothing wrong with that), this particular P·SZN brings us two models including a new approach to a model that quietly fell from lineup.

Before we get into specifics of the new TaylorMade P·770 and the P·7CB irons, I’m going to take a moment to suggest that maybe it’s time we stopped talking so much about the looks of TaylorMade P·Series irons. While at times in the past TaylorMade’s player’s irons were perhaps gaudy, the company has firmly established P·Series as reliably comely. So, if I said the P·770 and P·7CB deliver on TaylorMade’s promise of stunning good looks, wouldn’t that just the expectation at this point?

Digging in

While the two new models are for different types of players, there is a point of overlap in the story. Common to both the P·770 and the P·7MC is a redesigned sole meant to improve turf interaction. To be sure, that doesn’t always (or ever) make for an exciting story; it’s definitely not top-of-mind for golfers, but it’s important, nonetheless.

It’s at least part of the reason why Collin Morikawa had P ·7CBs in the bag at the Scottish Open and Open Championship.

The specific detail here is a tighter leading edge radius that helps the new P·Series irons get into the turf a little bit easier while promoting higher launch.

PARIS—Please allow me a moment to shake the baguette crumbs from my beard and pick the Pont l’Évêque from my molars… yes, the Games are upon us! I know many fans remain ambivalent about golf in the Olympics but I’ve been an evangelist ever since Rio, which is as much fun as I’ve had on the beat. More importantly, it was palpable how much the Olympic experience meant to the golfers, who skew toward nerdy, skinny loners; to suddenly be embraced by their national teams and welcomed by real jocks meant a ton to these awkward, polo-wearing dweebs. 

We are slowly making progress on the Olympic experiment: Rio was compromised by a stodgy reluctance to embrace change with the Zika virus serving as a convenient excuse for many players to bail; Tokyo had a better field but no energy because of Covid; with Paris, the best players are enthusiastically on board and Le National is a pedigreed course but the Olympics’ myopic clinging to the Official World Golf Ranking has meant the banishment of the biggest needle-mover in the sport, Bryson DeChambeau, to say nothing of Brooks Koepka, Cam Smith and sundry others (Tiger Woods is the needle emeritus but no longer relevant as a competitor). The L.A. Games in 2028 will finally be when Olympic golf takes full flight, played on a crispy Riviera with all the best players being showcased since the tour wars will have been solved by then. At least that’s the dream! OK, on to your questions…

What’s better, a gold medal or green jacket? @connorscott28

The easy answer is winning the Masters, which confers everlasting glory and puts you in the most exclusive club in the sport. Every single player from a country with any kind of golf tradition would pick the green jacket. But I still remember something Venezuela’s Jhonny Vegas told me in Rio: “In my country, almost no one has heard of the Masters or British Open. But every single one of them knows what the gold medal is.” So if we could poll the 60 golfers here in Paris there might be one or two outliers who choose Olympic glory because that is a richer currency in their homeland. 

Would a gold medal for Scottie push him past Xander for player of the year? @ricksterps

I never stop exploring. Last year, I tested a pair of trail shoes on the golf course and came up with mixed results.

After seeing a recent collaboration between legendary outdoor gear brand Merrell and the budding luxury golf brand Greyson, I figured it was time to give trail shoes another go.

It’s funny. I hadn’t really planned on testing trail shoes again. But a quick look at Merrell’s website makes it clear that Michigan-based brand feels their shoes are more than appropriate for the golf course. Hence, an entire page dedicated to golf.

I’ve spent more time than I care to admit in the Merrell Agility Peak 5, on and off the course. Here’s why this trail runner from Merrell is absolutely a shoe that I would golf in again.

About the Agility Peak 5

The Agility Peak 5 comes in three variants. The flagship low-top mesh pair, a low-top GORE-TEX pair and the high-top, winterized Agility Peak 5 Zero (the same shoe Merrell worked on with Greyson).