USA’s Xander Schauffele Wins a Gold Medal in Men’s Golf!

In the fight held at Kasumigaseki Country Club, Schauffele became the Olympic champion, Slovak Rory Sabbatini won silver, and Taiwanese C T Pan bronze medal.

For Schauffele, championships that had missed him so many times, most recently at the Masters, would be as special as a major. For his father, an Olympic medal he would share after his aspirations ended in a horrific car accident that cost him his left eye.

“I reminded myself, it’s only 4 footers,” he said on Sunday. “All you have to do is succeed. It doesn’t matter.”

Xander Schauffele is so close he’s Heading for Olympic Gold!

With more pressure than he needed, Schauffele got the prize he wanted at the end of his men’s golf, so wild that nine players were still in the mix for the medal while the last three were measuring their strokes on the 18th green.

The most important hit belonged to Schauffele, who had to stay out of the water and rely on a wedge and a 67 to 4 for par.

“Maybe I’m putting more pressure on myself because I want to go and win this more than anything else,” he said. “And along with my father, he devoted most of his life to get a medal for a while, and that was taken from him. It’s more than golf to me. And I’m happy and lucky to be sitting here.”

Rory Sabbatini set an Olympic record of 61 and had two bogeys on his card – enough for a sudden-death playoff for gold. He was overjoyed as Slovakia won the silver medal for his country.

Hideki Matsuyama’s dream of adding gold to his Master’s green jacket came to an end when he missed too many hits in the back nine at Kasumigaseki Country Club. There was still a 12-foot birdshot for bronze on the last hole. He missed that too, putting him in a seven-man playoff for the final medal among players from seven countries.