Olympics 2024: If there's a playoff for the medal stand, it involves the last 3 holes. Is that good news or bad news?

SAINT-QUENTIN-EN-YVELINES, France — The good news for fans is if a playoff is required for the Olympic medal stand, it will be contested on holes 16, 17 and 18. The bad news for players is if a playoff is required for the Olympic medal stand, it will be contested on holes 16, 17 and 18.

The three holes used in the sudden-death format (not aggregate) include the first hardest thus far for the week (18) and the third-hardest (17), as well as the fireworks of the water-logged 16th, the par 3 that has produced the most birdies.

And of course, heading into Sunday's final round, Jon Rahm and Xander Schauffele are tied for the gold medal position at 14 under, while Tommy Fleetwood is one stroke back and two clear of the chasers for the bronze medal. Still, that pack includes nine players within four shots of Fleetwood and the notables in that mix are World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler and World No. 3 Rory McIlroy.

If there’s a single playoff for the gold medal, the playoff will start on the 471-yard 18th, which has nearly half the double bogeys or worse recorded for the week by the entire course. If the players are still tied, they would move to the 16th, which has seen 10 balls in the water but also 39 birdies. That would be followed by the 17th, a long, uphill, bunker-less par 4 where only two birdies have been made from the rough for the week. The sequence would repeat until the winner of the gold medal emerges.

Subsequently or simultaneously, if there is a playoff to determine the bronze medal, it would start on 17 and move to 18 and then 16 until the tie is broken. In 2021 at the Tokyo Olympics, there was a seven-man playoff for the bronze, won by Chinese Taipei’s C.T. Pan.

For the week, the scoring average on 18 is 4.46, while 17 is at 4.20 and 16 is 2.92. No other three-hole stretch has played that much over par for the week. In short, if there's a tie, grab your popcorn.