Scottie Scheffler has won gold for the United States at men's golf as the heavy betting favorite going into competition.
Scheffler had been roughly +300 across the market earlier in the week and finished with a stellar 62 in the last round of play to win by one stroke at -19. For reference, the next best odds were Xander Schauffele (+525), Jon Rahm (+700) and Rory McIlroy (+700).
England's Tommy Fleetwood won the silver medal with a -18 finish while Japan's Hideki Matsuyama won bronze with a -17 display.
In the end, South Korea's Tom Kim — one of the Action Network's favorite picks to win this competition at a pre-tournament price of +2800 — didn't do enough to win a medal, which could have exempted him from military service in his home country. The 22-year-old Kim needed a top-three finish in this tournament in order to skip the 18-21 months of service that most South Korea males are required to undergo.
Kim finished in eighth place at -13, four strokes off from a medal.
For Scheffler, the Olympic gold medal caps off a tumultuous — yet successful — year for the world's best golfer. Despite Olympic gold and a win at the Masters, he was arrested outside the venue of the 2024 PGA Championship by an overzealous police officer. The charges were later dropped and the prosecutor in charge of the county, Mike O'Connell, later said Scheffler was correct to say that the entire situation was "a big misunderstanding."
