Scottie Scheffler has lauded his Team USA partner Xander Schauffele on the eve of their Olympics campaign as The Open champion attempts to defend his Olympic crown.
The world No. 1 takes to the course on Thursday for the opening round of the men’s Olympic event at Le Golf National, the venue for the 2018 Ryder Cup . The 28-year-old tees off as one of the favorites following his Masters win in April and six PGA Tour titles this year.
Scheffler is part of a USA super team alongside reigning Olympic champion Schauffele, Wyndham Clark and Collin Morikawa. Scheffler is hoping to round off a brilliant season by picking up a gold medal to go with his second green jacket. "It's not very often you get to compete in the Olympics, so to be able to have a medal for the rest of your life would be very special," Scheffler said on Monday.
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"If I don't, my life is certainly not going to end but it would be extremely special to have a gold medal and it's definitely one of the reasons why I'm here this week. I loved going to watch table tennis yesterday but that's not why I showed up. I try to place an equal amount of value to all the tournaments I play."
Scheffler’s incredible season has been surpassed by the success of his Team USA partner and defending Olympic champion Schauffele this year, who claimed victory in The Open Championship earlier this month at Royal Troon following triumph in the PGA Championship in May.
"I love seeing people like him (Schauffele) have success because he does it the right way - he works hard," Scheffler continued. "He's not full of himself. We were playing a practice round today and I was actually thinking about it like, 'Man, Xander is the exact same today after winning tournaments as he was if he had lost the tournament by one'.”
Golf returned to the Olympics in the 2016 Rio Games after a 112-year exodus, but Paris will be the first time that the Games will be unaffected after several top players pulled out of the Brazil event due to the Zika Virus, while the Tokyo Games were blighted by Covid and delayed by a year.
"I think there's always been weird situations surrounding the Olympics - the first one with Zika virus, and last one with Covid being a factor. I think that certainly had an effect on the Games," Scheffler added. And this year kind of being the first one where it will be fairly normal."
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