The world’s No. 1 golfer, Scottie Scheffler, ended the Paris 2024 Olympics exactly where one might expect: atop the podium, a gold medal draped around his neck.
The path to that moment Sunday was anything but a straight line.
Scheffler’s Olympics debut only ended in victory after several of his top rivals collapsed in the final round of competition at the men’s golf event in Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines.
The final-round 62 left Scheffler 19 strokes under par for the tournament at Le Golf National. His one-stroke victory over Tommy Fleetwood of Great Britain was only made possible when Jon Rahm of Spain lost a four-stroke lead on the 11th green.
Hideki Matsuyama, whose 8-under par 63 gave him the lead after one round, settled for bronze.
Both Fleetwood and Matsuyama had chances to make birdie on the final six holes but settled for par.
Scheffler, 28, sunk five birdies on the back nine.
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The gravity of the moment caught up with Scheffler on the Olympic podium. As the closing notes played on “The Star Spangled Banner,” he openly wept.
“It’s been a long week. It’s been a challenging week. I played some great golf today, and I’m proud to be going home with a medal,” Scheffler said. “These guys played tremendous golf and I think we should all be proud of the golf that we played this week.”
American Xander Schauffele went into the final day tied for first place but finished in a five-way tie for ninth.
“He’s been piling up trophies left and right and he keeps moving away from what is the pack of people chasing him in the world,” Schauffele said of Scheffler. “When I take my competitive hat off and put my USA patriot hat on, I’m very happy that we won another gold medal.”
Schauffele was the defending gold medalist, having won the event in Tokyo in 2021. Golf was contested at the Summer Olympics in 1900 and 1904, then not again until 2016. Justin Rose of Great Britain claimed gold in Rio de Janeiro.
Scheffler won his second Masters in April. He finished eighth at the PGA Championship in May, a tournament sidetracked by his own arrest for harassing a police officer. Prosecutors later dropped the charges against Scheffler.
Read more: Full Timeline of Events of Scottie Scheffler’s Arrest, Detainment at PGA Championship
In June, Scheffler won the Memorial Tournament, his fifth win on the season. That gave him more than $24 million in earnings for the year, breaking the PGA Tour record for a single season.
Two weeks later, Scheffler beat Tom Kim in a sudden-death playoff to win the Travelers Championship, his sixth victory of 2024.
No matter what happens when the PGA Tour schedule resumes, Scheffler might already have claimed his most memorable win of 2024.