Lydia Ko of Team New Zealand reacts on the podium during her national anthem. GETTY IMAGES

It isn't often that when an individual sport is contested three times at the Olympic Games a player scoops first prize in all three. In golf, it is even more difficult but in the men's tournament at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games world number one Scottie Scheffler completed a triple triumph.

Lydia Ko was born in South Korea but is a New Zealander by nationality. At 27, she already has three Olympic medals to her name. A very successful track record considering she can only win one at each Olympic Games.

Having already won silver at Rio 2016 and bronze at Tokyo 2020 Ko was just missing gold and at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, she went from strength to strength.



On the first day she shot 72, the par of the course. Her round was a little irregular and she almost blew it on the 16th hole where she made a double bogey to end the day thirteenth, tied with many players. 

On the second day, she improved significantly scoring several birdies before closing with a single bogey on the 18th. 

With a card of 67 strokes, -5 she was already third, three strokes behind the Swiss Morgane Metraux, who became the new leader after beating the record of the first half of the course. She shot -8 in nine holes. Ko's third day was again excellent, with another six birdies and two bogeys. She stood at -9, tied with Metraux.

It was between Ko, Metraux and American Rose Zhang, who was just two strokes behind. The New Zealander did not need to play her best game. She started with a bogey, but her two partners began to give up a lot of strokes, and she added a few birdies to sure up her lead. 

A double bogey on the 13th hole could have jeopardised her victory, but she kept her composure and sealed the gold with a birdie on the last hole, leaving her on -10.

Surprisingly Germany's Esther Henseleit leapt into second place to win the silver medal. Her strong performance on the final day, with seven birdies and one bogey, saw her move up the leaderboard to -8 overtaking several players who had already completed the final round. 



China's Xiyu Lin was playing on the final day in the number one match with American Nelly Korda, the Tokyo 2020 Olympic champion, and France's Celine Boutier, who finished the first day as leader. She outclassed them both by a wide margin and with her 69, the best round of the tournament for her, she claimed the bronze medal. 

Scheffler rallies with faith to take gold

Men's golf is still in a very controversial moment because of the divergence between the classic PGA Tour and European Tour and the LIV Golf, the professional circuit that has a Saudi Arabian investment fund behind it. It is something that even affects the qualification for the Olympic Games.

The world number one came to Paris looking for inspiration alongside the likes of Simone Biles, her artistic gymnastics teammates, and a star-studded Team USA squad. His progress in the tournament is somewhat reminiscent of Ko's, although he left more work for the last day than the New Zealander.



The American played a good game the first three days, but it was not enough to be champion at Le Golf National. Several players were performing exceedingly well and making things difficult for him. Especially the Spaniard Jon Rahm, who was in form.

When Ramh's game began to drop, Scheffler stepped up and started to string birdies together. He saw medals within reach and with some terrific performances, he managed to clinch gold. He tied the record at Le Golf National, something Norwegian Nicolai Hojgaard had also done the day before, equalling his brother Rasmus's record, set at the 2022 French Open.



Two hours before the end of the tournament, the result of -19 looked like it would not be enough for gold. Perhaps not enough for silver either. But Rahm's bad time, the stumble of the British Tommy Fleetwood on the 17th hole and some missed opportunities by the Japanese Hideki Matsuyama gave Scheffler the victory. 

Silver went to the Briton Fleetwood who was very consistent at almost all times and Matsuyama did enough to seal bronze despite starting the tournament as the leader and needing to react on the last day so that the leaders did not slip away.

Rahm left without a prize and Xander Schauffele, gold medallist at Tokyo 2020, missed out due to a bad last day peformance.