2024 Men's Olympic Golf Course Preview & Early Bet: A 60-1 longshot to target

The Olympic Men’s Golf event starts this Thursday at 3:00 AM EST over in Paris, France.

The event will feature 60 players, will be played over four rounds, and will not feature a cut of any kind. The field comprises players from 32 countries with the American team (based on the OWGR) having the largest delegation of four players, the maximum, and the most of any country in the event. This season will also mark the third time that Golf has been featured in the Olympics (since it was reintroduced as a sport in 2016) with Justin Rose (2016) and Xander Schauffele (2020) taking home gold medalist honors from the last two iterations.

The event will have a major championship feel, as top players from both the PGA and LIV Golf Tour will be pitted against each other for the full four days over a very challenging and unique course. Scottie Scheffler, Rory McIlroy, and recent Open Championship winner (and 2020 gold medalist) Xander Schauffele will all be teeing it against the likes of Jon Rahm, Joaquin Niemann, and Abraham Ancer.

Overall, eight of the current top 10 players in the OWGR are in the field with Patrick Cantlay and Bryson DeChambeau being the only two ineligible players from inside the top 10 (thanks to the USA having such a strong pool of players). 

With the Olympics set in Paris, it was a relatively easy decision to have the Olympic games staged at Le Golf National – Albatros, a course that was designed for hosting professional players and has been one of the featured venues on the DP World Tour for the past 20+ years.

Today, I’ll go over the course and also highlight some key stats and player notes for betting. I’ll also highlight one player for betting and note any current wagers I am making on that player. With the Olympics following the same four-round format as any regular PGA event I’ll also be back on Wednesday with another article that highlights the full betting card for the week. 

Let’s dive in and get our 2024 Olympic Golf Week started!

Men's Olympic Golf 2024 Course Preview 

• Le Golf National - Albatros
• Greens: Poa blend
• Par: 71, 7,331
• Design: Hubert Chesneau and Robert von Hagge (1990)

Le Golf National is a three-course venue that sits just outside of Paris. The tournament venue for this week will be the Albatros Course, an 18-hole venue that has also hosted numerous big golfing events in the past including the annual French Open event held on the DP World Tour and the Ryder Cup (2018).

When we saw this course at the Ryder Cup it played extremely difficult as the Europeans had grown the rough out to nearly unplayable lengths and minimized the fairway widths. That made the already tight fairways extremely difficult to hit and put more emphasis on precision. For the Olympics, the venue has reportedly gone back to a three-tier rough length which should make things more tolerable and allow players who are just off the fairway a better chance at saving par or even making birdie. That should help the bigger hitters and also allow for a bit more aggression.

That’s important to note, as the setup at Le Golf National isn’t for the faint of heart. It’s not overly long but has narrow, winding fairways that traverse along big stretches of water and some strategically placed fairway bunkers, at points, meant to punish overly aggressive tee shots and those trying to bail out. The greens at the Albatros course are also well protected as water comes into play on nine of the 18 holes on approach. That makes iron pay of the utmost importance this week and will also mean around the green games will be tested as players will naturally bailout on some of the more difficult approaches (especially if the wind is up). Expect a low GIR% from the field, overall, and the medalists to have a high scrambling rate. 

While the entire course is daunting, it’s the final four holes at the Albatros that give this venue its signature flair.

The 15th is a dog leg par 4 into an island green. If players can complete that daunting task with a par or better, their reward is a tough par 3 whose peninsula green juts out into the water and then a 480+ yard par 4 with a narrow fairway. The last hole of the gauntlet, the 18th and final hole, is another long par 4 that includes the toughest tee shot on the course and an approach into an island green – somewhat reminiscent of the 17th green at TPC Sawgrass.

Looking at past winners at this course over the past decade, we see names like Tommy Fleetwood, Alex Noren, Graham McDowell even Miguel Ángel Jiménez pop up; technician players who were superb with their short-to-irons, but also possess(ed) great short games.

From a correlation standpoint, there is no doubt that venues on the PGA TOUR like TPC Sawgrass and PGA National stand out as solid comparables; and it’s very likely that the creators of Albatros likely took some hints from Pete Dye’s stadium creation at Sawgrass. 

So how should we approach Le Golf National for betting?

Great tee-to-green play will be essential at such a demanding venue, but approach play will be of the utmost importance. The Albatros course has enough doglegs that players will be looking for position off the tee on most holes, and then trying to get aggressive where they can with their approaches.

This is certainly a venue where we could see short-game and putting specialists excel as well. With so much water, the variance will be high this week, and any player who can get up and down for par consistently can keep themselves in the medal hunt.

Ideally, from a stat perspective, we’d want our golfer to have the following: 

• Elite approaches with strong proximity from 175 yards and in
• Good bogey avoidance; strong ATG game and scrambling from 30 yards and in
• Strong tee-to-green game

For recent form, I’d really look at players who have shown they can be patient on tougher courses or setups over the last couple of months.

Jul 19, 2024; Ayrshire, SCT; Scottie Scheffler chips to the 18th green during the second round of the Open Championship golf tournament at Royal Troon. Mandatory Credit: Jack Gruber-USA TODAY Sports

With medals on the line, having success at the Albatros may be more about avoiding big numbers and letting others wilt away than being overly aggressive and attempting to overpower such a technical and water-filled course.

Combining and weighing recent stats that focused on approaches, proximity and around-the-green play into a model that targeted the last 24 rounds this week gave me the following players as my top 10:

1. Scottie Scheffler
2. Collin Morikawa
3. Xander Schauffele
4. Rory McIlroy
5. Tom Kim
6. Ludvig Aberg
7. Corey Conners
8. Tommy Fleetwood
9. Shane Lowry
10. Sepp Straka

Le Golf National Should play extremely technical with greens in regulation (GIR) being an important stat given all of the water and narrow fairways players will have to avoid. Here are the top 24 players in GIRs gained over the last 24 rounds.

1. Scottie Scheffler
2. Xander Schauffele
3. Ludvig Aberg
4. Rory McIlroy
5. Viktor Hovland
6. Tommy Fleetwood
7. Sepp Straka
8. Collin Morikawa
9. Joaquin Niemann
10. Byeong Hun An

Betting Facts and Stats for the 2024 Men's Olympic Golf

Below are the previous odds (week of) of the past two Olympic Golf winners and medalists. A couple of notes about these odds below:

• Stenson had just come off winning the Open Championship the year he won his silver medal. Rose has finished T22 at the previous two majors that season
• 2016 also saw many of the top players skip the event that season due to Zika virus fears
• Schauffele, who won in 2021 (Toyko 2020) also finished well at the previous two major championships coming in (T7 US Open, T26 Open)
• There was a 7-man playoff for the bronze medal at the 2020 Olympics, with plenty of longshots, but also a group that included Rory McIlroy

Below are the previous two winners and medalists of the Olympics and their pre-event odds from the beginning of the week of the event.

(Odds courtesy of SportsOddsHistory.)

Early Bet for 2024 Men's Olympic Golf

Byeong Hun An: Each-Way 1/5 Top 5 (+6000; bet365)

Byeong Hun An is a veteran of the European and PGA TOUR who should appreciate the unique stadium environment of Le Golf National. He’s only played the course once back in 2016 but his lack of recent play at the course may also work in his favour as it tends to be a demanding test that can often leave some deep psychological damage on players given how unforgiving it plays. Additionally, he won’t have previous biases from the tougher Ryder Cup setup in 2018 to overcome.

For his career, An has done well at similar technical setups where water is a feature, posting multiple top 10 finishes at the TPC Scottsdale and PGA National, along with strong performances at Sedgefield and Bay Hill. His lone Korn Ferry Tour win also came in Florida at the LECOM Classic on a venue that featured plenty of water.

An’s coming off a solid Open where he finished T13 and has showcased some much-improved ball striking over his past two starts; he also ranks 10th in GIR’s gained over the last 24 rounds.

Moreover, he was confident with the putter and one of the leaders in strokes gained around the green stats at the Open, an area which should be of vital importance around the Albatros course given that we should expect lower than normal GIR%s.

While it’s hard to pinpoint the exact motivation levels of some of the top names, that shouldn’t be a problem with An, who stated in an interview last week that he’ll be treating the Olympics as one of the season's biggest events.

“For me it's one of the majors. They treat you like a major winner as a gold medalist. I think that means a lot, and there are not many gold medalists as a golfer. Not just a golfer, for all the athletes, I think, gold medal means pretty big.”

At 60-1, we’re also getting around +1120 on a top-five finish with an each-way bet, which seems like a really good deal on a motivated player like An, who has already grinded out four top 5 finishes against tougher fields on the PGA in 2024 and is coming off a career-best major championship finish (T13, Troon).