The Asian Tour will be strongly represented at this summer’s Paris Olympics after the final list of entrants was confirmed from the Olympic Golf Ranking (OGR) recently.
The top-60 from the OGR made it through to the men’s event, and it features four past Asian Tour Order of Merit (OOM) champions: Thailand’s Kiradech Aphibarnrat, Gavin Green from Malaysia, India’s Shubhankar Sharma and Tom Kim from Korea.
In addition, Asian Tour tournament winners Carlos Ortiz from Mexico, Spaniard David Puig, India’s Gaganjeet Bhullar, plus Phachara Khongwatmai from Thailand, have also qualified.
Chile’s Joaquin Niemann is one of seven current Asian Tour members who will be in action; the others are Puig, Ortiz, Kiradech, Green, Bhullar, and Phachara.
The men’s event is scheduled to take place at Le Golf National on the outskirts of Paris from August 1-4.
Puig, winner of this year’s Malaysian Open and currently second on the Asian Tour OOM, was one of the last to qualify thanks to playing all four rounds in the US Open last week.
Ortiz’s qualification continues his remarkable season: he currently leads The International Series Rankings, having won the International Series Oman, while he also triumphed at LIV Golf Houston.
Kiradech Aphibarnrat of Thailand. Photo: Asian Tour
Impressively, this will be Green’s third successive Olympics having been at the Rio and Tokyo games, while Kiradech competed in Rio. Both Ortiz and Niemann took part in Tokyo. The others will be making their debuts.
American Scott Scheffler topped the OGR, while Northern Ireland’s Rory McIlroy was second and Xander Schauffele third. American Schauffele won the Gold Medal at the Tokyo Olympics.
The United States will be represented by the powerful quartet of Scheffler, Schauffele, Wyndham Clark, and Collin Morikawa
McIlroy and Shane Lowry will play for Ireland in Paris.
