The Women’s Olympic Golf Competition looks stronger than the men’s!
The Women’s Olympic Golf Competition looks stronger than the men’s!
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Today kicks off the Olympic Women’s Golf Competition, and on paper looks to be even more exciting than the Henrik Stenson/Justin Rose showdown we saw on Sunday! Team Korea looks very hard to beat, but I’ll be pulling for Team USA. (obviously) Thanks so much to Alex Myers of Golf Digest for breaking this down for us!
If you paid attention to even one minute of the Olympic men’s golf coverage last week, you probably know that Justin Rose won the first golf gold medal in 112 years. But you probably don’t know that someone will end an even longer drought on the women’s side this week. American Margaret Abbott is the only woman ever to win the Olympic golf competition, doing so in 1900. Abbott was also the first woman to win an Olympic gold medal. Well, sort of.
Abbott actually took home a porcelain bowl for winning the nine-hole event in Paris, because there were no Olympic gold medals yet. Bummer. But fast forward 116 years and we’ll finally see another Olympic champ in women’s golf. And to prepare for the tournament, here are seven other things you actually need to know.
1. The women’s field is much stronger than the men’s.
Whereas six of the top 10 in the Official World Golf Ranking didn’t play in the men’s event, the top nine players in the Rolex Ranking (which uses a similar calculation) will tee it up in Rio this week. That number would be even more stout, but No. 10, Ha Na Jang, wasn’t eligible because she was only ranked fifth among South Korean women. Further evidence of the strength of this week’s 60-woman field is how much more valuable this tournament is worth. Whereas the men’s event actually awarded fewer world ranking points than the Travelers Championship the week prior, there are a lot more points at stake for the women.
A hectic summer schedule was part of the reason for poor attendance on the men’s side, but the women are in the midst of arguably an even busier stretch of golf. With the U.S. Women’s Open, Women’s British Open and next month’s Evian Championship, the Olympics competition sits in between three majors in a two-month stretch. Plus, there was also last month’s International Crown in which most of the top players competed. By the way, unlike the men’s event, the Olympic women’s golf competition starts on Wednesday and ends on Saturday to avoid Sunday’s closing ceremony. Again, the tournament ends on Saturday, NOT Sunday. Set your DVRs accordingly, and don’t say we didn’t warn you.
2016 Rio Olympics – Golf – Women’s Individual Stroke Play – Olympic Golf Course – Rio de Janeiro, Brazil – 18/08/2016. Inbee Park (KOR) of Korea. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque
3. South Korea is the only country sending four players.
South Korea is the U.S. of the women’s competition, sending the maximum number of golfers. The team is led by Inbee Park, although her status is a bit up in the air after an injured left thumb forced her to sit out the past two majors and the International Crown. As mentioned, the race to make the South Korean team was so competitive that Ha Na Jang, currently ranked 10th in the world, didn’t qualify. Neither did World No. 12 So Yeon Ryu, No. 13 Sung Hyun Park, and No. 16 Bo-Mee Lee. Not a bad B-squad.
To see the rest of this interesting article, go here!
Source: Alex Myers Golf Digest
Pictures: Getty Images
Thanks for reading – The Women’s Olympic Golf Competition looks stronger than the men’s!
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