This Wednesday marks the start of the women’s golf competition at the Paris Olympic Games. It takes place on the same stage as the men’s competition, the Albatros course at Golf National, although the women will play it with different yardage, shorter. Nine of the top ten players in the world ranking will be in contention, with only Japanese Ayaka Furue missing, who moved up to Number 8 in the world after winning the Evian, the fourth Major of the season, a success that came too late in the season to make it into the Japanese team for these Games.
In addition, we have thirteen players from the top 15 in the world and seventeen from the top 20, with the Number One at the head of all of them, the American Nelly Korda, one of the main favourites and defender of the gold medal won in Tokyo three years ago.
To date, in the two previous editions of the Games, Rio and Tokyo, since golf re-entered the Olympic programme, European golf has not been able to win even a single medal. There has been no way. The best result of a player from the Old Continent in this competition is the fifth place of Danish Emily Kristine Pedersen in Tokyo, so it will have to be in Paris where this bad run is broken, if only by pure statistics. There is no doubt that the French Celine Boutier, local heroine, may have something to say about it, among other things because she is the best placed European in the world ranking (7th). Boutier goes out to play tomorrow alongside the Numbers 2 and 3 in the world, the American Lilia Vu and the Korean Amy Yang.
The two Spaniards, Carlota Ciganda and Azahara Muñoz, who are playing their third consecutive Games, should also have something to say, if only for experience and maturity. The truth is that neither of them has ever been in the fight for the medals, even though both of them, in Rio and in Tokyo, had an excellent start to the Olympic tournament.
It’s very curious: in Rio, eight years ago, Carlota was in fourth position after the first round, just two strokes off the lead, and Azahara was seventh, three strokes off the lead; but in Tokyo the exact same story was repeated: after the first 18 holes Carlota was fourth and Azahara seventh, two and three strokes off the lead. The superstitious will have something to say if the same story repeats itself tomorrow. Similarly, it could be pointed out that the two Olympic champions (Inbee Park in Rio and Nelly Korda in Tokyo) started in second position in the first round and took the lead in the second and did not let go until the end… Anyway, these are just more or less amusing coincidences, but we will not fail to pay attention to that second position at the end of tomorrow’s round.
As could be seen in the men’s competition, accuracy from the tee is crucial, because the rough, without appearing in its maximum and most fearsome expression, can penalise a lot if you miss the fairway by two or three metres.
As has been said, no European player has yet won an Olympic medal. We will see if any of them make it onto the podium this time, it’s about time. And we will also have to see if Lydia Ko is able to do it for the third consecutive time. She was silver in Rio and bronze in Tokyo after losing a playoff. No one else, man or woman, has repeated on the Olympic podium, and she has the opportunity to do it for the third time. She only lacks the gold. It cannot be said that she arrives in her best moment, but with the New Zealander it is always convenient to count…
