List of Golf Players who won a Medal for Great Britain at the Olympics

Golf has been on the Olympic schedule since its second iteration in 1900 and was continued in 1904 as well. The events were played in a match-play format and were contested by teams and individuals separately. However, after the latter event, there was a hiatus of 112 years for it to be added back to the Olympic schedule in 2016. The golf was supposed to take place at the 1908 London Olympics but was cancelled a couple of days earlier, owing to a dispute, which led to a boycott from all the golfers participating in the then-host country, which was Great Britain. Still, an attempt was made to bring it back for the 1920 Olympics, but a lack of entries forced its cancellation.

Finally, the sport's expanding popularity led to the establishment of the International Golf Federation (IGF) in 1958, which was recognized by the International Olympic Committee (IOC). Golf was revived in 2001 but was rejected in 2005, followed by another effort in 2009, which got approval for the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics.

Great Britain's Olympic Golf Medalists

Great Britain has a total of three Olympic medals. In the all-time golf Olympic medal table, Great Britain falls in second place after the leading nation, the USA. The latter has a total of 13 medals, including five golds, while Britain has gold, silver and bronze each.

The list of golfers who won medals for Great Britain is as follows:

British athletes Walter Rutherford and David Robertson took home silver and bronze, respectively, at the 1900 Paris Olympics, while American athlete Charles Sands took home gold.

Great Britain won its first-ever gold Olympic medal in 2016 when Justin Rose achieved the feat at 16 under par. Two shots better than Swedish player Henrik Stenson, who took home the silver medal. This came after Rose made history with a hole-in-one during the opening round. To win the bronze medal, American Matt Kuchar shot a final-round 63, which tied for the best round of the competition.

However, the 2016 Olympics are often criticized for the lack of the world's top golfers because most of them withdrew due to rumors of the Zika virus outbreak, including Rory McIlroy, Jordan Speith, and Adam Scott, among others, from the field of 60.

Interestingly, the winners of the 1900 Paris Olympics and the 1904 St. Louis Olympics were amateurs, since the Olympics had a mandate for only amateurs to participate, which changed in the late 1980s.