On Tuesday, the International Golf Federation announced the 60 golfers who have qualified for the men’s Summer Olympics competition on Aug. 1-4 at Le Golf National in Guyancourt, France, which is about 25 miles southwest of Paris.
This will mark the third straight Summer Olympics that golf will take place. From 1908 games to the 2012 Games that were both held in London, golf was not an Olympic sport.
Of the 60 players that get the opportunity to compete for a gold medal in less than two months, there will be 32 countries represented, including the maximum four players from the United States.
The four players who will represent America are Scottie Scheffler, the reigning Gold Medalist Xander Schauffele, Wyndham Clark and Collin Morikawa.
As a result, that means four of the top seven players from this week’s Official World Golf Rankings will be from one country.
Related: Breaking down this week’s top 15 of the world golf rankings following the U.S. Open
For Scheffler and Clark, this is going to be their first time competing at the Summer Olympics. Scheffler, who is the World No. 1, already has five wins in 2024 and despite a hiccup at the U.S. Open, is ready to get set to compete for the Gold Medal.
Clark, who is ranked No. 4 in the world golf rankings, won at Pebble Beach earlier this year and has a couple of runner-up finishes to Scheffler in back-to-back weeks at the Arnold Palmer Invitational and the Players Championship and like Scheffler, looking to turn things around with the Olympics coming up, as well as the final major of 2024, the Open Championship at Royal Troon.
During the 2020 Summer Games in Tokyo that was delayed by one year due to the COVID-19 Pandemic, Schauffele took home the gold medal by getting his approach shot on the 72nd hole to five feet to secure victory for and him family, especially for his father Stephan, who had dreams of being an Olympic decathlete before he was hit by a drunk driver in 1986, shattering his Olympic dreams.
In the same Olympics three years ago, Morikawa was part of a seven-man playoff to see who was going to take the bronze medal. Ultimately, Morikawa fell shot and the bronze medal went to Chinese Taipei’s C.T. Pan, who will also qualifed for this year’s Olympics.
The reigning Silver Medalist, Rory Sabbatini was not among the 60 names to qualify for the Olympics due to not having success and not fitting the qualification process.
How players qualified for the Summer Olympics
Over the last two years, dating back to June 17, 2022, players had the opportunity to earn world golf rankings points to qualify for the 72-hole stroke play event through last week’s U.S. Open at Pinehurst No. 2 in North Carolina.
The top 15 players in the world golf rankings were eligible with a limit of four players from a given country.
Beyond the top 15, players were then eligible in the world golf rankings with a maximum of two eligible players from each country that did not have two or more players among the top 15.
The host country, France is guaranted one spot, which will be Matthieu Pavon, coming off his fifth-place finish at the U.S. Open.
Because Scheffler, Schauffele, Clark and Morikawa were the first four Americans in the world golf rankings, that means No. 8 Patrick Cantlay, No. 10 Bryson DeChambeau, No. 11 Brian Harman, No. 14 Sahith Theegala and No. 15 Max Homa were ineligible.
For a player like DeChambeau, who won the U.S. Open last week, he only has four opportunities during the year to gain world rankings points, via the four major tournaments, unlike the other Americans who just missed the cut, as a result of playing on the LIV Golf Circuit.
He said as much as he would want to be in France and have that opportunity, he understands the decisions he made to play in a league that was not going to accrue world rankings points before he signed up.
“I would love to represent the United States,” DeChambeau said Monday on the Pat McAfee Show. “I’m playing great golf, I’m excited. But ultimately, am I frustrated, disappointed? Sure, you can absolutely say that. But I made the choices that I made and there’s consequences to that and I respect it. Hopefully sooner rather than later, we figure that out so this great game of golf we can get past all that and move forward to show how great this sport actually is all across the world.”
The 60 players on the women’s side to qualify for the Summer Olympics will be announced next week, following this week’s KPMG Women’s PGA Championship at Sahalee Country Club in Sammamish, Wash.