Before the 2024 Paris Olympics, each golfer was asked to write their goal for the Games on a whiteboard. Scottie Scheffler, the world number one, fresh off winning the Masters, wrote two words: “Have Fun.” He then visited the Louvre, watched the swimming, hung out with his wife and newborn son, and played tourist for a week.
Then he shot a final-round 62 on the Albatros Course at Le Golf National to win Olympic gold.
Scheffler started the last day four shots behind co-leaders Jon Rahm and Xander Schauffele. He played the back nine in 29 strokes, five birdies in his last seven holes, while Rahm, who had led by four shots at 20-under through 10 holes, inexplicably bogeyed three of his final eight to finish tied fifth. Schauffele, the defending gold medallist from Tokyo, slid to tied ninth. Scheffler cried on the podium during the national anthem.
The women’s event delivered an even more remarkable story. Lydia Ko won gold to complete the full set of Olympic medals: silver in Rio 2016, bronze in Tokyo 2020, gold in Paris 2024. She became the only golfer in the modern era to win all three medals at three separate Games. The gold qualified her for the LPGA Hall of Fame at age 27, making her the youngest inductee ever. She was subsequently made a Dame Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit.
The course that hosted these moments is an engineering marvel. Le Golf National was built on flat wheat farmland near Versailles, the same land that had supplied the château since Louis XIV. Designers Hubert Chesneau and Robert Von Hagge moved 2.2 million cubic metres of earth over three years, with 400 trucks per day hauling Parisian excavation spoil to sculpt every contour, lake, and mound from scratch. France’s first stadium-style course was born from nothing.
The closing stretch is the course’s signature: four holes with island-like greens surrounded by water hazards, designed to create television drama. Five greens exceed 40 metres in length.
The Albatros closed in October 2024 for the Grand Paris Express underground metro construction, which runs directly alongside the course. Holes 4, 5, and 6 are being completely redesigned, and greens across the course are being reshaped and returfed. The reopening is confirmed for 1 September 2026, meaning our tour group will be among the first to play the newly renovated Albatros.
By 2030, a new train station will connect Le Golf National to Paris Orly Airport in under 25 minutes. But for now, we’ll have the privilege of playing a course that Scottie Scheffler, Jon Rahm, and Lydia Ko have already made Olympic history on, and that will feel brand new underfoot.
Fairways & Frontlines plays Le Golf National’s Albatros Course immediately after its September 2026 reopening.