Stars set to battle for medals in Olympic finale

An exciting finale awaits on Sunday as Xander Schauffele takes a one shot lead over home favourite Hideki Matsuyama in the Olympic Men’s Golf Competition.

Schauffele held on to a narrow lead after making a birdie at the last to add a 68 to his Friday 63, and will head into Sunday one shot clear of Mastuyama, who carded a four under 67 on day three.

Yet with ten players all within four strokes of his lead, the question of who will end up on the podium in this year’s Games is still far from decided. And it’s why the 54 hole leader was headed straight to the range after his round.

“I think tomorrow may feel a little different,” said Schauffele.

“There's a little bit more on the line than what we normally play for and you're obviously trying to represent your country to the best of your ability. So that's why I'll be on the range tonight.”

Sunday will be a familiar pairing for the two men, who were paired together during round three and also during the final two rounds of Matsuyama’s Masters victory back in April. This time, Schauffele is hoping he can feed off the Japanese star in the right way.

“Yeah, he obviously was firing on a lot of cylinders when he won the Masters,” Schauffele said of Matsuyama, who is playing in his first tournament after contracting Covid-19.

“I think he's maybe not as in his realm of perfection, maybe he's not hitting it as good as he would like to, but he's one back and the same can be said for him, he didn't have his best stuff potentially too and he made some nice putts to stay in it. So we sort of played -- unfortunately we fed off each other in the wrong way and we're going to be playing tomorrow as well, so hopefully we can get off to a better start.”

Mastuyama is also planning to draw on experience, but for a different reason. The World Number 20 said he is hoping his mental strength will win out, as he admitted he was still lacking endurance following his six week break from competition.

When asked what his response would have been when he was recovering if he was told that he would be in the final group, he replied, “I definitely could not have believed it”.

“To be honest, the endurance part of my game has been struggling a little bit, but it's held up, thankfully it's held up the last few days, so it's going to hopefully it's going to hold up tomorrow as well.

“I played with Xander in the third and fourth day together at the Masters, I'm sure Xander will come out determined to win the gold medal tomorrow, so hopefully on my end too I'm going to come out strong on the mental side.”

But Schauffele and Matsuyama are far from the only two men in the conversation for the gold medal, let alone the other two spots on the podium.

They will be joined in the final group by Great Britain’s Paul Casey, whose third round 66 leaves him just two behind the leader and in a tie on 12 under with Carlos Ortiz. And for Casey, the focus is all on replicating Justin Rose’s feat in 2016.

“Tomorrow's a big deal,” said Casey.

“I think it gets knocked quite a bit, doesn't it. It's like why do we need it, all this kind of stuff, but the guys that are here are very a waiver what this means to one person well it will be three medals but to the gold medalist tomorrow it's massive.

Asked if he was more motivated that there were also silver and bronze medals up for grabs, Casey replied: “We'll see what that pans out as I come down the last sort of few holes or something like that. But as I stand here right now I'm only thinking about one thing.”

Just one shot behind Casey are Sepp Straka, Sebastian Munoz, Mito Pereira and Rory McIlroy. McIlroy, who carded a four under 67, said there was definitely a different feeling to the week compared to a regular event.

“It feels different but I wouldn't know how to describe it,” said McIlroy about the difference between competing for one trophy versus three medals.

“I think just I said over there, just as the, as it gets closer and you get closer to that I guess finishing line for want of a better word that you start thinking about it a little bit more and then you think, okay, again, last week an Olympic medal, well I don't know really know what that would mean to me and now that you got a chance to do it it's like, geez, that would be pretty cool.

“There's still 18 holes is a lot of golf still and a lot can happen. I need to go play a good round of golf tomorrow and see how it all unfolds.”

Tommy Fleetwood and Shane Lowry round out the top ten on 10 under par, and both men are hoping they can produce something special tomorrow.

“I think obviously gold medal would be very special but just a medal here would be something very special and to be able to hang one of those around your neck would be pretty cool,” said Lowry.

“I'm just excited I can't wait to go out there and give it a good run tomorrow and hopefully do something very special.”

“That's the lowest round I've had for a very long time, really, and I think sort of got to take that back with me and think about that and draw on that,” added Fleetwood after a seven under 64.

“It was nice to come down the stretch feeling like constantly giving myself chances and moving up the board. We all know what, like what places matter this week, so it's nice to actually be wherever I am within touching distance wherever I am.”

And while all of the players have a strong chance at contending for the gold medal, there are some players – like Thomas Pieters – who said he really would be happy with any medal.

Pieters played his way back into contention for a medal with a seven under par 64 during the third round, and currently sits at eight under par.

The Belgian knows he will have to produce another low round to make it on to the Medal podium, but he admitted that winning any medal for Belgium would be a big deal.

“It would mean the world to me,” he said.

“Being from such a small country, only two medals until now, so, yeah, that's like winning a major for me being from Belgium. So that would mean -- any medal, I mean right now I would be very happy with bronze. So I probably need something like 8-under tomorrow, 9-under, so I need to play the round of my life tomorrow.”