“That felt better than anything I’ve ever won”.
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“The whole week I’ve been so focused, I’ve been so up for it”, Rose added. Rose, who hit a hole in one on his first day, carded a final round four-under-par 67 to beat Sweden’s Henrik Stenson by two shots in a competition that went all the way to the final putts. He went on to bogey the hole.
Rose paid tribute to his rival and friend by saying: “I just said today that I had to out-Stenson Stenson”. “But it’s not something you plan to have worked on out on the course”.
“It did kind of put me out of rhythm a little bit, but I was still there till the end. It was just down to whoever made a birdie on the last, otherwise we would have been out for a play-off”.
Stenson, whose poor chip left him a near-impossible putt to stay level with Rose, closed with a bogey to take the silver on 270, one stroke ahead of United States bronze medalist Matt Kuchar.
Named to the U.S. team only after Jordan Spieth withdrew due to concerns over the Zika virus, Kuchar had already moved into the bronze position after going four-under on the front nine.
“I barely qualified”, Kuchar said.
“I guess if you would have asked me before the week that I would leave here with a medal, I would have been pretty pleased and I managed to do that”. Afterwards, he cried on the medal stand while carefully inspecting his medal. Bubba Watson (70) tied for eighth at 7 under. “I was grinning from ear to ear every time I looked at the leaderboard and saw he was making pars and making birdies, he was going to get a medal”, the two-time Masters victor said. I knew I wasn’t going to get much from him at all.
Germany’s Thomas Pieters was fourth at nine-under after a 65 while there was a three-way tie for fifth at eight-under.
The lasting memory of golf’s return was Rose and Stenson going toe-to-toe for more than five hours before a sellout crowd (capped at 12,000 tickets), neither with more than a one-stroke advantage until it was over. “I did as well as I could”, Stenson said.
A month after Stenson had won a thrilling duel with Phil Mickelson at Royal Troon, the Olympics also effectively became a match-play contest between two of the six major champions in the 60-man field. “It was the experience of a lifetime”.
HENRIK STENSON: (comparing Olympic atmosphere to a major championship) “It is slightly different and I don’t think you necessarily need to compare, either”.
The Englishman made history by hitting Olympic golf’s first hole-in-one in the opening round and started Sunday with a one-shot lead. Rose was allowed to drop because the exact finishing spot was unknown.
But the players who did come to Brazil have nearly universally spoke of their enjoyment at being part of the Olympic movement. “I had been holding it in all day”, Rose said. “In the back of my mind I wanted to be 100% for Rio”. I was on that last green, just sort of pinching myself and taking myself back to the quote that I had given about the Olympics all along – I hope my resume one day read ‘multiple major champion and Olympic gold medallist’.
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“It felt like a cross between a golf tournament and a carnival”, Rose said.
