Rex Hoggard has shared what he believes the winning score is likely to be in the Olympic golf event as he discussed some of the differences to Le Golf National from the 2018 Ryder Cup.
A number of the world’s best are just outside Paris for the golf event in the coming days, with Scottie Scheffler and Xander Schauffele the favourites on the men’s side to add a gold medal to their stunning years.
But there are a number of players who may feel that they have a slight advantage over some of the PGA Tour heavyweights, with Le Golf National hosting Open de France on the DP World Tour almost continuously since 1991.
The likes of Tommy Fleetwood, Alex Noren and Guido Migliozzi have all won the event in recent years, while Fleetwood and Noren are amongst those who won the Ryder Cup in 2018.
Rex Hoggard suggests winning score at Olympic golf event
Many American fans will probably know Le Golf National as an incredibly tough test which certainly penalised the country’s longest hitters six years ago. However, it appears that the course will look quite different for the Olympics, with Rex Hoggard telling Golf Channel Podcast where he expects the winning score to be.
“It won’t be a pushover, I don’t want to make it sound like suddenly we’re going to show up at the American Express and 25 under is going to win. I think it’s going to be more like what we see at the French Open, which is a DP World Tour event which is, more times than not here, at Le Golf National,” he said.
“The winner at that event the last two years has won at 16 under and 14 under respectively, and so, something closer to that would be my guess, especially when you’re talking about the best players in the world, both for the men this week, and the women next week, and the conditions; it’s very, very lush, they’ve had a lot of rain, anyone who watched the Opening Ceremony on Friday can attest to how much rain they’ve gotten in Paris the last few weeks. It’s going to be lush, I think it’s going to end up to being target golf, and probably we’ll see something closer to that, but it will not be that Thomas Bjorn monster that we saw in 2018.”
The good news for the US team…
The good news for the American team is that none of the players in their team were involved in the 2018 Ryder Cup, with Xander Schauffele the only one of the four who found himself in contention for a captain’s pick. The 30-year-old ended up missing out to Tony Finau.
Wyndham Clark had just finished his first year as a PGA Tour regular, while Scottie Scheffler and Collin Morikawa would make their names later on. So none of them have the scars from what was a pretty miserable weekend for Jim Furyk’s side.
Ultimately, the four boast seven major championships between them, including three of the four from this year alone. So they are surely going to be the names to beat this week, particularly if the course is nowhere near as difficult for those who prioritise distance over accuracy.
Of course, they are all pretty exceptional at finding the fairway anyway, but it is a big advantage when they do not have to worry as much about how severe the rough is if they are wayward.
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