Australians off early pace in Paris
Ryan Fox gets his Olympic campaign underway.- photo PGA of America
Jason Day has opened his Olympic campaign with a round of 70 on day one of the men’s competition at Le Golf National in Paris. He finds himself in a share of 21st place and six shots behind the brilliant round of 63 by Japan’s Hideki Matsuyama.
Day moved to 4 under when he birdied the 16th but then made a mess of the 18th with a double bogey to fall from a share of 6th to 21st on the congested leaderboard.
It is the first appearance in the Olympics for Day after declining the opportunity in 2016 and then missing the qualifying criteria in 2021 and he found the experience very unique.
“I was just saying a little bit earlier that this is probably the most nervous I’ve been wearing a set of clothes that you look down and see the colours,” said the Ohio-based Queenslander. “The first couple holes caught me off-guard actually quite a lot. I was quite nervous standing over the first tee shot and then it took me a few holes to get over it.
“It’s amazing, we’re not playing for money this week obviously. We are playing for a medal and you’re here for kind of playing for free. But my point is that it feels totally different. This is the most I’ve felt nervous standing on a tee box wearing a set of clothes that I’m wearing for the first time.
“It’s a good feeling because it just shows that it means a lot to me, which is good. So I’m happy about it.”
“18 sucked a little bit. Two just uncommitted swings, the wedge shot and the tee shot. Tidy that up and get to work on the range this afternoon.”
When asked whether there will come a time when a Gold Medal is revered as much as a major, Day responded;
“Potentially. That takes time and history. Over time, we’re in our third Olympics in since the 1900s. I think at some point it will. Just because there’s only one of them, you know what I mean. Currently on the men’s side, there’s only one Gold Medal that you can win. It’s not like you can jump into swimming and if you’re good enough, you can jump into different races. Over time it will just get bigger and bigger.”
Ryan Fox was the best of the four Australasians in the field, the New Zealander round in 4 under 67 to be tied for 6th.
Fox moved to 5 under when he birdied the 14th but a bogey at the 16th saw him finish four off the pace of Hideki.
Australia’s other competitor Min Woo Lee began with a horror round of 76 and is sharing last place of the 60 competitors while New Zealand’s second competitor, Daniel Hillier also struggled with an opening round of 75.
Lee was very disappointed with his effort.
“It was pretty garbage but I was saying in the other interview, sometimes you’re going to go a little bit backwards to go forwards. Working on a couple things and there was a lot of good out there.
“But it’s just unfortunate as a player. You always want to play your best but sometimes the results don’t show that, especially at a course like this where it’s pretty tough and penalising. I felt like I was in all the penalties today.
“Didn’t drive it anywhere near as good I normally do. Normally I’m striping it lately. Hitting it pretty good off the tee but lots of water and lots of balls missing. Had to just kind of battle through that and yeah, it’s quite tough when you’re in thick hay most of the day.”
