By ED TRAVIS

For those interested in what some call the pinnacle of international competition, the third edition of modern Olympic golf begins with the men’s tournament on Thursday, August 1, and the women’s tournament on Wednesday, August 7.^eBoth events are 72 holes long and are played at Le Golf National in Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines, outside Paris.

Fans will remember that this is the same course where the US Ryder Cup team were defeated at the 2018 European Championships.

The fields for Olympic golf are not large, just 60 men and 60 women. Places for each country are chosen from the Official World Golf Rankings (OWGR) for men and the Rolex Women’s World Golf Rankings (RWGR) for women. The top 15 places are eligible, but there is a limit of four players from any one country. After that, the top two players from each country are invited to fill the fields, as long as the country does not already have two or more players in the top 15.

The US Men’s Olympic Team consists of world number one Scottie Scheffler, Xander Schauffele (OWGR 2), Wyndham Clark (OWGR 5) and Collin Morikawa (OWGR 9).

A very strong team, no matter how you look at it. Scheffler has won six times on Tour this season, including the Masters, and Schauffele has two majors, the PGA Championship and the British Open. Schauffele is also the reigning men’s Olympic champion, having won in Tokyo in 2020.

The American women’s team is also full: world number one Nelly Korda, Lillia Vu (RWGR 2) and Rose Zhang (RWGR 9). Korda was of course the champion four years ago, beating Mone Inami from Japan and Lydia Ko from New Zealand.

Both the PGA Tour and LPGA Tour will take a week off during the Olympic Games.

Golf has not been played as an Olympic sport since 1904, but it returned at the 2016 Games in Rio de Janeiro.

Short putts
It’s never been done before, winning first as an amateur and then as a professional on the PGA Tour in the same year. In January, Nick Dunlap, a sophomore at the University of Alabama, won the American Express Invitational, turned pro and went on to win the Barracuda Championship. Unfortunately for Dunlap, most of the golfing world was focused on Xander Schauffele’s victory at The Open, but the likable 20-year-old, now ranked 41st^st in the world, probably won’t mind.

Tour Edge Golf founder David Glod, who pioneered premium designed clubs using the latest materials that cost up to 40% less than competing models from other manufacturers, has stepped down as president and will take over as CEO. Tim Clarke, the former top executive at Wilson Golf, is the new president. Glod started Tour Edge in 1986 and is considered one of the top club designers in the industry.