Rex Hoggard has shared whether he was most surprised by what happened to Jon Rahm, Rory McIlroy or Xander Schauffele during the final round of the Olympic golf event at Le Golf National after the trio all missed out on winning a medal.
Anyone who doubted whether the world’s best golfers would particularly care about winning an Olympic medal were certainly silenced on Sunday, with Paris playing host to an amazing event – which ended with Scottie Scheffler winning gold for the US.
Heading into the final day, it appeared that even Scheffler would have too much to do to win gold, with the world number one starting four shots behind Xander Schauffele and Jon Rahm. Schauffele previously won the gold in Tokyo, and has clinched two major titles this year.
However, the 30-year-old’s charge for the line never really got going, and no-one in the top 34 shot a worse round than Schauffele on Sunday.
Meanwhile, Rory McIlroy‘s wedges cost him again, with the Irishman finding the water on 15 before making double bogey to see his hopes of making the podium all but dashed.
But it is no surprise that Hoggard found the capitulation of Jon Rahm even more shocking, with the Spaniard leading by four at one stage in the final round. Ultimately, the LIV Golf star did not even take home a medal.
Jon Rahm’s collapse the most shocking on dramatic final day of Olympic golf event
And speaking on the Golf Channel Podcast, Hoggard shared how high the stakes seemed to be for Rahm heading into that final round at Le Golf National.
“Jon Rahm, without a shadow of a doubt, based not only on what he’s done the last few weeks, he played well at Troon, won last week at the LIV Golf event in England and felt like he had found that form that he’d been missing before the season. But look at what he did on the opening nine, he was dominant, pulling away from the field to build that four shot lead, and you’re right, it’s the double cross that sort of surprised me, because what you get used to seeing Jon Rahm when he’s playing really well, which is what he’s been doing the last couple of weeks, is just holding on and hitting that cut bullet, just as hard as he possibly can, knowing that it’s always going to fall to the right. When it goes to the left, it’s so shocking, and it feels like he’s hitting it off the planet, it doesn’t look right coming off the club face and it must feel so wildly uncomfortable with him. I’m going to go with Rahm,” he said.
“I was talking with someone who knows Jon and has spoke with Jon really the last couple of weeks, and this person pointed something out to me that I hadn’t really thought through, but Sunday was probably going to be the biggest round of Jon Rahm’s year. And by that he means, and look, we have done this on this podcast, so it doesn’t take too much of a stretch to think that other people have done it as well, we were always going to base Jon Rahm’s season on what he did in the major championships, we were going to mention what he does in LIV events and certainly winning last week was a step in the right direction, but we were always going to base the major championships, because when he left to go to LIV Golf late last year, everyone, including us, was curious to see, is that golf good for him? Is he going to be able to transition that type of golf into the intensity that we see at major championships that make him such a formidable player?
“And what we saw through the first three events, he was injured at one and missed the cut at another, but he was a non-factor at all three is the fairest way of saying it. And then at Royal Troon, he was top 10, but I think we can both agree that was a backdoor top 10. Jon himself said this week he knew he never really had a chance to win. And so, coming into this event, this was going to essentially be the event that was going to define his year – fair or not.”
LIV’s critics presented with an open goal
Rahm has been superb on LIV since his move – the only surprise is that he had not won individually before LIV Golf UK last month. But the breakaway tour is still taking shape, with the fields probably not as strong all the way down as PIF would like.
Certainly, his underwhelming performances in the majors presents LIV’s critics with the chance to downplay how well Rahm has played in regular events this year.
An Olympic gold medal would have been a big moment for LIV – perhaps as big as the major wins from Brooks Koepka and Bryson DeChambeau over the last couple of years. And you can guarantee that LIV would have made the most of Rahm’s win at their next event had he got the job done.
What happened in those final nine holes will probably baffle Rahm as much as anyone, but it is definitely an open goal for those who believe that 54-hole events have done little to help the Spaniard take his game to that next level.
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