The women's individual golf event at the 2020 Summer Olympics took place from 4 to 7 August 2021 at the Kasumigaseki Country Club.[1] 60 golfers from 35 nations competed. Nelly Korda of the United States took gold, and Mone Inami of Japan and Lydia Ko of New Zealand tied for second with Inami taking the silver in a sudden-death playoff.[2] For Ko, it was her second consecutive Olympic medal after a silver in 2016.
Background
The first Olympic golf tournaments took place at the second modern Games in Paris 1900. Men's and women's events were held. Golf was featured again at the next Games, St. Louis 1904 with men's events (an individual tournament as well as a team event). The 1908 Games in London were also supposed to have a golf competition, but a dispute led to a boycott by all of the host nation's golfers, leaving only a single international competitor and resulting in the cancellation of the event. Golf would disappear from the Olympic program until returning in 2016.[3]
Each nation can qualify from one to four golfers based on the World Rankings of 28 June 2021. The top 60 golfers, subject to limits per nation and guarantees for the host and continental representation, are selected. A nation can have three or four golfers if they are all in the top 15 of the rankings; otherwise, each nation is limited to two golfers. One spot is guaranteed for the host nation and five spots are guaranteed to ensure that each Olympic continent has at least one representative.
Competition format
Following the format used when golf was returned to the Olympic programme in 2016, the tournament is a four-round stroke play tournament, with the lowest score over the total 72 holes winning.
Schedule
As with most major stroke play tournaments, the event is held over four days (Wednesday through Saturday) with each golfer playing one round (18 holes) per day.[1]
