The early Games
Golf was played at two early Olympic Games, according to NBC Olympics:
- Paris 1900: Charles Sands of the United States won the men's gold and Margaret Abbott, also of the United States, the women's gold.
- St. Louis 1904: George Lyon of Canada won the men's individual gold, and there was also a men's team event, won by the Western Golf Association.
The sport then left the programme until Rio de Janeiro in 2016, a gap of 112 years.
How the Olympic events work
A search summary of the DP World Tour's Paris 2024 guide describes each individual event as 72 holes of stroke play with no cut. If players tie for a medal, a sudden-death playoff decides it. At Tokyo, NBC Olympics records, the men's bronze went to C.T. Pan after a seven-player playoff for third.
Medallists since 2016
Men
| Games | Gold | Silver | Bronze |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rio 2016 | Justin Rose (Great Britain) | Henrik Stenson (Sweden) | Matt Kuchar (United States) |
| Tokyo 2020, held in 2021 | Xander Schauffele (United States) | Rory Sabbatini (Slovakia) | C.T. Pan (Chinese Taipei) |
| Paris 2024 | Scottie Scheffler (United States) | Tommy Fleetwood (Great Britain) | Hideki Matsuyama (Japan) |
Women
| Games | Gold | Silver | Bronze |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rio 2016 | Inbee Park (Korea) | Lydia Ko (New Zealand) | Shanshan Feng (China) |
| Tokyo 2020, held in 2021 | Nelly Korda (United States) | Mone Inami (Japan) | Lydia Ko (New Zealand) |
| Paris 2024 | Lydia Ko (New Zealand) | Esther Henseleit (Germany) | Xiyu Lin (China) |
Rio and Tokyo results are from NBC Olympics. The Paris 2024 results come from search summaries of International Golf Federation and DP World Tour pages.
Paris 2024
Both events were played at Le Golf National in Guyancourt. The men played from 1 to 4 August 2024, and Scheffler came from four shots back on the final day to take gold. The women followed from 7 to 10 August. Ko's gold completed a full set of Olympic medals across three Games: silver in 2016, bronze in 2021 and gold in 2024. About two weeks later she won the AIG Women's Open at St Andrews (see women's majors).
Spelling
The 2024 women's bronze medallist appears as Xiyu Lin in medal listings. Some captions and headlines spell her name "Xiya Lin" or "Xiyu Li". We use the medal-listing spelling.
Los Angeles 2028
The International Golf Federation set out the LA28 rules on 9 June 2026, announcing that qualifying was officially under way.
Qualifying
- Sixty women and sixty men qualify through the Olympic Golf Ranking.
- Players inside the top 15 qualify with a limit of four per country in each gender. Beyond the top 15, the limit is two per country.
- Each of the five Olympic continents is guaranteed a place if needed.
| Ranking window | Opens | Closes |
|---|---|---|
| Women | 8 June 2026 | 5 June 2028 |
| Men | 22 June 2026 | 19 June 2028 |
The new mixed team event
LA28 adds a mixed event for 16 teams. Each team is one woman and one man from the same country who have already qualified for the individual events, and teams are chosen through the Olympic Mixed-Team Ranking (IGF). Search summaries of NBC Sports and AP reports from April 2025 describe a two-day format: one 18-hole round of foursomes and one 18-hole round of four-ball. The formats of play page explains both.
Venue and schedule
| Event | Dates |
|---|---|
| Men's individual | 19 to 22 July 2028 |
| Mixed team | 23 to 24 July 2028 |
| Women's individual | 26 to 29 July 2028 |
All three events will be played at The Riviera Country Club, according to the IGF. Riviera also hosted the 2026 U.S. Women's Open, won by Nelly Korda.
For how the professional rankings work, see world rankings.
Sources
- NBC Olympics, Golf 101: Olympic history
- International Golf Federation
- DP World Tour, Everything you need to know about golf at Paris 2024
- Outlook India, Paris Olympic Games 2024 golf medallists in pictures
- IGF, Olympic golf qualification process officially underway for LA28 (9 June 2026)
- NBC Sports, Format revealed for mixed-gender golf event at 2028 LA Olympics
- News4Jax (AP), Olympic golf to get a mixed team event for the 2028 Los Angeles Games (9 April 2025)
- AIG Women's Open, Nelly Korda and Haeran Ryu: 2026 major winners