A fan holds a British flag against the wind as he watches play on the 17th hole during the first round of the men’s golf event at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Thursday, Aug. 11, 2016. The 63 tied the Olympic record and was the best final-round score of Kuchar’s professional career. “Pretty cool that he was able to make it”.
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Big-hitting American Bubba Watson says the circus that is The Games could well be the very distraction that helps Australia’s Marcus Fraser to a memorable victory in the first Olympic golf tournament in 112 years.
He’s now seven shots off Justin Rose’s lead with two holes to play in the third round.
The fourth and final round of Olympic golf in Rio opened on a hot sunny day with little wind. “There were more mobile phones and cameras than normal, I guess because it’s a different crowd out there than we normally have”. When that putt [for eagle] on No. 10 went in, I thought, ‘I got a chance here.’ My heart started pounding.
The biggest surprise came from the Americans.
“We’ve always followed each other on social media, and we linked up this week and we’ve been texting and he said he was going to try to come out to the golf”, Fowler said.
Matt Kuchar did his part for the red, white and blue.
“Normally, you don’t get rewarded much for second and third, but here you can walk away with some hardware”, Fowler said. Fowler shot a 75, beating only two players – Rodolfo Cazaubon of Mexico and Lin Wen-Tang of Taiwan. But for whatever reason, Watson tried to stop his putting stroke, not on the way back – but on the way to the ball. That led to a double bogey and he wound up at 73. “I’m planning on coming out (Friday) and playing a lot better”. Then the wind picked up and made the course’s most hard stretch – holes 11 through 14 – play even tougher.
After making birdies on four holes on the front side to make things interesting, Kuchar eagled the par-5 10th, navigated the tough holes on the back side, then birdied the 15th.
The vibe on the first tee was strong, not almost the level of a Ryder Cup, but different from other tournaments with players dressed in team colors and being introduced by country. I didn’t hit a bad putt today. I haven’t got very many followers as it is, but I think I’ve picked up about an extra 400 this week (laughs).
“It’s just an unbelievable week, ” said Kuchar, 38, who has seven PGA Tour victories, the biggest coming at the 2012 Players Championship. “To hear my name announced as an Olympian and to go tee off, there were a few more butterflies than I anticipated”.
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Patrick Reed rallied with a final-round 64 that jumped him to a tie for 11th. When it did become an Olympic sport, the lights went off and I said, ‘How incredible, I can’t believe I now potentially have the opportunity’. “When you think about it, most weeks you have 156 guys playing, 155 losers”.
