The group sits at 11 under, two shots clear of Jon Rahm who is alone in fourth at 9 under.
Le Golf National is a par-71 track measuring 7,174 yards.
From tee times to TV and streaming information, here’s everything you need to know about Saturday’s third round of the 2024 Olympic men’s golf competition. All times ET.
“It’s very, very difficult and very, very raw at the moment,” said Fleetwood.
SAINT-QUENTIN-EN-YVELINES, France — British golfer Tommy Fleetwood is playing this Olympic tournament with a heavy heart while mourning a horrific tragedy in his hometown.
Fleetwood is from Southport, England, where three children were killed and 10 others injured in a stabbing attack Monday at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class. A 17-year-old boy has been charged with the murders of Bebe King, Elsie Dot Stancombe and Alice Dasilva Aguiar and multiple counts of attempted murder, according to police.
“It’s very, very difficult and very, very raw at the moment,” said Fleetwood after Thursday’s opening round at Le Golf National.
Wyndham Clark of Team United States and Tommy Fleetwood of Team Great Britain walk off the second green in round two of mens stroke play during the Paris 2024 Olympic Summer Games at Le Golf National. Mandatory Credit: Michael Madrid-USA TODAY Sports
Fleetwood entered Friday’s second round at the Paris Games four strokes off the lead after shooting a 4-under-par 67 on Thursday, but narrowed the margin with a 31 on the front nine during Friday’s second round to get within a shot of the lead. He stayed hot after the turn and if not for a bogey on No. 18, he’d be leading the event at the midway point.
Fleetwood’s 64 put him at 11 under after 36 holes, even with Xander Schauffele and Hideki Matsuyama. Jon Rahm, is two shots off the pace at 9 under.
Fleetwood posted on his Instagram account that he was “absolutely heartbroken” about the news and said “my heart will always be in Southport.”
His father and cousins still live in the town, he said.
“The majority of my family, actually, is still in Southport. Everybody feels the effects of something like that happening, and you kind of never expect it to happen, but especially in a little town like Southport. … All we can do now is try and move forward and make the best of it and do what we can for the ones that have been affected, really, because they are the ones that hurt the most.”
In Paris, there will be no talk of prize money or FedEx Cup points or any other commoditized metric.
To whatever extent the Olympics ever truly embodied noble values like sporting excellence and international unity, it has long since been overtaken by more obvious priorities among its constituent parties — commercialism, geopolitics and cheating, to single out just a few. Thus, for cynical sports fans, targets don’t come any softer than IOC luminaries in Lausanne.
Golf fans too have reason for ambivalence. In most sports, an Olympic gold medal is the pinnacle of achievement. In golf — being included for a third consecutive Olympiad — gold represents the sport’s fifth biggest prize, at best, and perhaps only the seventh. Most male competitors place greater value on major championships, and even the Players. Plenty would prefer a FedEx Cup, the game’s most lucrative title. That prioritization won’t change while fields are comprised of professionals rather than amateurs.
Eight years on from Rio, Olympic medals remain an ill-defined currency for golfers. Xander Schauffele is justifiably proud of his Tokyo gold, but it was cited as his peak accomplishment only because he didn’t own the pair of majors he collected this summer. Yet much has changed since the XXXII Games in Japan, and perhaps fans will now better appreciate the rarest thing in our sport: a title that isn’t defined by its monetary value.
Some of the most enthralling action in Paris has featured athletes well-compensated in their sports but for whom a podium finish has genuine meaning. Witness the last stand of Andy Murray and the potential farewell of Rafael Nadal. Presumably, a few golfers are competing grudgingly, not particularly animated by an unpaid week of work during an already long season, but wary of being perceived as disloyal to their flags. Most are embracing the moment though.
“It makes you feel like you’re part of something bigger than just golf,” said Ludvig Aberg. Nicolai Højgaard confessed to goosebumps from wearing national colors and imagining a medal. Even Rory McIlroy, once a doubter, has become a believer. In 2021, he lost a seven-man playoff for the bronze medal and remarked afterward that he’d never tried so hard to finish third. One man even tried to litigate his place at Le Golf National. Joost Luiten qualified but the Dutch Olympic committee decided not to send him (the same body didn’t prevent a convicted child rapist from competing under its flag). Luiten won his case but his spot had already been given away so he was placed on the alternate list. He didn’t start the men’s event on Thursday.
Anyone who watched Shane Lowry’s glee as Ireland’s flag-bearer understood what the Olympics means to him. After the opening ceremony, he flew to Dublin to attend the All-Ireland Gaelic football final. Lowry is a devoted fan of the sport, and his father was part of the national title-winning team in 1982. This year’s final pitted counties Galway and Armagh, the latter from whence I sprang. Friends and family crossed oceans to attend. I didn’t watch, but driving around the county in recent days one can’t avoid the undiluted passion. Bunting was draped on most buildings. Flags fluttered from most moving cars. Sheep were dyed. As feverish fandom goes, it rivals South American soccer.
Gaelic footballers have one thing in common with Olympians: neither are paid. Many athletes in Paris earn the other 40-odd weeks of the year, but not Irish footballers. Guys become national heroes on the weekend and return to work Monday as teachers and electricians. Their rewards — pride in community, love for the sport, being stood a drink in every pub in the county for eternity — must seem awfully quaint to anyone familiar with the prevailing sentiments in men’s professional golf, where so many conversations are focused on compensation and entitlement.
In one respect — the 72-hole stroke play format — Olympic golf is too similar to the norm. In another, it’s a welcome respite. In Paris, there will be no talk of prize money or FedEx Cup points or any other commoditized metric that can make golf feel less like a passion and more like a product. So many of the things that turn off fans are missing, though Greg Norman is wandering the boulevards taking selfies and blathering about LIV because … well, Greg Norman. (If only the IOC had the humor to award him an honorary silver medal).
Perhaps an Olympic gold won’t ever be the equal of a major championship for most competitors, but the presence of golf in the Games is only a positive. In many nations, a sport having Olympic status impacts government development funding. So if folks want to talk about growing the game — and mean it as more than a convenient platitude — this is a decent place to try, even if the significance won’t be measurable for years. That’s a reality elite female golfers grasped long before their male counterparts. These two weeks in Paris are about what the world’s best golfers can contribute, not about what they will receive.
Japan’s Hideki Matsuyama was brilliant, firing a bogey-free 8-under 63 to take the solo lead. He’s up by two on Xander Schauffele, the Open champion from two weeks ago at Royal Troon and No. 2 golfer in the world. Schauffele had one bogey but seven birdies to sign for 6-under 65.
Joaquin Niemann, Emiliano Grillo and Tom Kim are tied for third at 5 under.
There were two weather delays during the first round, which saw 30,000 fans descend upon Le Golf National for the competition.
From tee times to TV and streaming information, here’s everything you need to know about Friday’s second round of the 2024 Olympic men’s golf competition. All times ET.
France’s Victor Perez struck the opening tee shot Thursday morning at Le Golf National in Paris to kick off the tournament, which features 60 players from across the globe battling it out for a gold medal over four rounds of stroke play. And what a sight it was at the first tee.
Thousands of spectators packed the area surrounding the tee and first fairway to watch the golf competition get underway Thursday morning. Even after overnight storms in Paris, Le Golf National was looking spectacular, and fans showed out early to support.
Thursday’s crowds were easily the largest since golf returned to the Olympics in 2016. The sport isn’t as big in Rio de Janeiro, and fans weren’t allowed in Tokyo. Neither of those is an issue in France.
The Olympics are the one time every four years that the best athletes in the world are in the same city battling it out for gold medals and ultimate bragging rights.
And for the golfers, instead of competing for large sums of money like most do every single week, the main prize is a gold medal.
The winner of this week’s Paris Olympics men’s golf competition at Le Golf National will receive the following: exemptions into all major championships during the 2025 season, exemption into the 2025 Players, the 2025 Sentry, given the gold medalist is a PGA Tour member, and Official World Golf Ranking points.
Oh, and the gold medal.
The Olympics does not award prize money, instead just gold, silver and bronze medals to its competing athletes. However, there’s still a way for athletes to make money at the games.
For Team USA, the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee pays its winning athletes $37,500 for gold medals, $22,500 for silver and $15,000 for bronze medals. Similarly to the U.S., the Canadian Olympic Committee says it will pay $20,000 for gold, $15,000 for silver and $10,000 for bronze.
Although there are no golfers from Hong Kong, if one of the country’s athletes wins gold in Paris, it’s a $6,000,000 HK payday or equivalent to $768,232 US dollars.
And this year, for the first time, all of the track and field athletes will receive $50,000 for gold from the governing body World Athletics.
But for golf, there is no prize money from the Olympics or the International Golf Federation, only from individual countries’ Olympic committees.
Xander Schauffele has a different relationship with the Olympic Games than most other golfers in the field at Le Golf National this week.
X’s father, Stefan, was on the German decathlon team and an Olympic hopeful before a drunk driver struck his car, causing him a multitude of injuries and to lose sight in his left eye.
And while Stefan never got his chance to don a medal, Xander did, winning gold at the Tokyo Olympics three years ago. This week, he is the defending champion and arguably the hottest golfer in the world, as 60 players from across the globe are in Paris at Le Golf National for the men’s golf Olympic competition. He comes to the games off a victory in the Open Championship two weeks ago in Scotland and has won two majors this year.
Justin Rose, the gold medal winner in Rio de Janeiro in 2016, isn’t in the field this week, so no one is able to answer the question quite like Xander on which means more, an Olympic gold or major trophy?
“It is a good question but it’s tricky,” Xander said. “Golf was in the Olympics and then it was out of the Olympics. So I think a lot of the kids were watching Tiger, or if you’re a little bit older, you’re watching Jack or Arnie, the older legends of the game. You’re watching them win majors. It’s kind of different.
“For me, it’s very personal, my relationship with my dad, the relationship my dad and I have with golf, a lot of is sort of surround his teachings of when he was trying to be an Olympian.
Xander Schauffele of Team United States looks on during a practice round ahead of the Men’s Individual Stroke Play on day four of the Olympic Games Paris 2024 at Le Golf National on July 30, 2024, in Paris, France. (Photo by Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images)
“Then the majors are sort of what I grew up watching. They are two very different things to me. I think the gold medal, it’s been marinating nicely. Maybe in 30, 40 years, it’s something that’s really going to be special as it gets more traction and it kind of gets back into the eyes or into the normalcy of being in the Olympics.”
Xander said being able to share the medal with Stefan was one of the more intimate moments of his life in Tokyo. Being held with strict COVID-19 protocols, there were no fans and hardly any family members present, but Stefan was there to watch his son’s biggest victory to date. Xander’s added a couple more bullet points to his resume since, but the Olympics have a special place in his heart.
“When you hear the anthem and you come off green and I’m able to sort of share the medal with him, it was kind of as cool as it gets for me, being something that I can deliver to him that he’s always wanted,” Xander said. “I think for starters, just being an Olympian is something he always wanted, so that was already a huge delivery just in that sense.”
This Olympics has plenty of differences for Xander. For one, athletes are able to attend other events and explore Paris, whereas in Tokyo, they were confined to hotel rooms.
Between the Open and Olympics, Xander said he and Collin Morikawa spent time with their wives in Portugal and played plenty of golf. To get familiar with Le Golf National, he has played 36 holes and is going to play nine more come Wednesday.
Then on Thursday, it’s time to defend his gold medal.
“Feels like a brand new tournament,” Xander said. “I think with the build and the anticipation of fans and I think just coming to and from the hotel, you just see people everywhere. So the feel of everything and willing I think you’re starting to get the real feel of a lot of what the Olympics is about.”
On Thursday, Aug. 1, the men’s golf competition at the 2024 Olympics gets underway at Le Golf National in Paris, the home of the Open de France on the DP World Tour and 2018 Ryder Cup.
World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler (USA), PGA Championship and British Open winner Xander Schauffele (USA), Rory McIlroy (Ireland), Ludvig Aberg (Sweden), Collin Morikawa (USA) and Jon Rahm (Spain) are just some of the players in the 60-man field.
Le Golf National is a par-71 track measuring 7,174 yards.
The gold medalist will earn exemptions into all four majors in 2025 along with the Players Championship.
Here are some of the best photos from the men’s golf competition at the 2024 Olympics in Paris.
The 2024 Olympics are well underway, and that means some of the best golfers in the world are in Paris preparing to take on Le Golf National for a chance to win a gold medal.
A field of 60 players from across the globe will tee it up Thursday in the opening round of the Olympic men’s golf competition. The event is comprised of four rounds of stroke play, with a winner being determined Sunday afternoon.
Xander Schauffele, coming into the Olympics off his victory at the Open Championship, won the gold medal in Tokyo in 2021.
France’s Victor Perez will hit the opening tee shot on Thursday morning.
From tee times to TV and streaming information, here’s everything you need to know about Thursday’s opening round of the 2024 Olympic men’s golf competition. All times ET.
Celine Boutier has lived in Texas for eight years, but no one in the Olympic field is more familiar with Le Golf National than the 30-year-old Frenchwoman.
“I definitely know it with my eyes closed,” said Boutier, whose family home is 40 minutes away.
A six-time winner on the LPGA, Boutier broke through with her first major championship on home soil at the 2023 Amundi Evian Championship, becoming the first Frenchwoman to win the LPGA’s fifth major.
Currently No. 7 in the world, Boutier will be the fan favorite Aug. 7-10 when the women’s competition heats up in France at the Olympic games.
“You definitely have to be a really good ball-striker to be able to have a chance there and to be able to control your ball,” she said of 2018 Ryder Cup venue. “I think it’s a great test.”
One of several LPGA players who took part in Friday’s opening ceremonies on the Seine River, this marks Boutier’s second Olympic Games. Fans can gain more insight into the former Duke star by watching a recently released “Playing Lessons” episode on NBC’s GolfPass. The two-part program, taped last March at Omni Orlando Resort at ChampionsGate, is hosted by PGA Tour caddie Jim “Bones” Mackay. Golfweek was on the scene in Florida as the pair met for the first time to film.
Boutier isn’t big on technique. She leaves that to her younger brother Kevin, a Lead Master Instructor at The Jim McLean Golf School in Miami. Not that she likes to talk instruction with him either.
“Just in general, I don’t like to talk about swings. I may also be a little bit scared of what he might say, so I’d rather not inquire about it,” she said with a laugh.
Scenes from Celine Boutier’s appearance on GolfPass show “Playing Lessons” at Omni ChampionsGate on Monday, March 18, 2024 in Orlando, Florida. (Photo by Cy Cyr / GolfPass)
This episode of “Playing Lessons” is less about technique and more about strategy, as Boutier walks Mackay through her routines and how she goes about selecting which type of shot to hit. Mackay, who spent most of his caddying career with Phil Mickelson, carried the bag for Boutier as they played three holes, talking about her career in between shots and what goes on inside the ropes.
This marks the fourth season of “Playing Lessons” and Mackay became a regular host of the series after being called to fill in for a Jon Rahm episode in Scottsdale, Arizona, where they both live. Mackay, who also works as an on-course reporter for Golf Channel/NBC, agreed to give hosting duties a shot.
“I was pretty horrible,” said Mackay of that first stint. “I mean, you saw me do three or four takes of things today. That day, when I tried to introduce the show, I bet you we did close to 20 takes. So my level of comfort was really, really low. But we had so much fun. And you know, it’s like a little family out here. We have this crew of the same folks that do virtually every show, and it’s fun. We put the band back together, and we go here, and we go there. But that Jon Rahm experience was something that took me a little while to get over because I had a lot to learn.”
Kevin Schultz, senior director of golf content, notes the humble Mackay tries to stay in the background. He’s raking bunkers and repairing divots for the show, as the personable caddie has done for decades on Tour. But hosting a show puts him front and center, and that some getting used to.
“He’s helped us get players,” said Schultz of the show’s top-tier guests, “because they want to do it for Bones.”
While Mackay spends most of his time on the men’s side, he has called the action at women’s majors as well as the Augusta National Women’s Amateur. LPGA guests on “Playing Lessons” include major champions Patty Tavatanakit and Sophia Popov as well as the inspirational Haley Moore.
“I just love how in control the women are, you know,” said Mackay. “There’s no length being sacrificed here. But whether it’s in ‘Playing Lessons,’ or I remember doing TV at the Women’s PGA Championship at Aronimink, and Jennifer Kupcho hit 18 greens in regulation one round. I remember thinking to myself, if the men were playing out here today from the same tees, how many guys would be able to hit 18 greens in regulation, and it wasn’t going to be many. I just remember just being blown away by that ball-striking feat and how good everybody is.”
During the episode with Boutier, Mackay and senior producer Chris Graham put the French star in a fairway bunker and asked her to show how she’d advise players of varying handicap levels to proceed. Boutier hit three different shots, saving the more aggressive approach for the elite player til the end, when she hit it to 3 feet.
Scenes from Celine Boutier’s appearance on GolfPass show “Playing Lessons” at Omni ChampionsGate on Monday, March 18, 2024 in Orlando, Florida. (Photo by Cy Cyr / GolfPass)
Boutier hasn’t competed since the Evian, taking time to prepare for the once-in-a-lifetime experience of enjoying an Olympic Games so close to home.
While winning a major in front of a French crowd gives her more confidence, Boutier said it does nothing to minimize the pressure she feels.
“I feel like every season you start from scratch,” she said, “every week you start from scratch. It doesn’t really matter what you did before.”