Olympic golf playoff format and rules: Sudden death tiebreakers will be used for men’s medals

The first golf event in more than 100 years has been one of the curiosities of these Rio games. How does it work? Who is here? Who is not here? It’s different seeing a sport so many are familiar with in such a different setting for the first time in our lifetimes.

One of the most significant ways this setting deviates from the typical week on Tour is the need to definitively sort out second and third place. There are no ties for gold, silver, and bronze medals in the golf competitions. So we won’t see three players up there on the second level of the podium as we did the other night at the pool, where Michael Phelps, Chad le Clos, and László Cseh all won silver medals. In swimming, of course, putting contestants back in the pool to swim it again and break a tie is not really a possibility. In golf, they can go back out there and run through an extra playoff hole or two to quickly break a tie. They do that on Tour for first place, but never for second or third.

That’s what will happen on Sunday should multiple players finish at or near the top with the same score. Henrik Stenson and Justin Rose appear to be the clear favorites for the gold, separating themselves from the rest of the field. If they’re tied after 18 holes, the two will head to a sudden death playoff on a rotation of Nos. 18, 1, and 17 to settle the gold and silver medals.

There could be a another playoff for bronze, too, if multiple players finish with the same third-place score. Contenders for that medal make up a much longer list, and include Americans Bubba Watson and Matt Kuchar, Spain’s Sergio Garcia, Belgium’s Thomas Pieters, and others. The playoff for bronze would start after the entire field has completed 18 holes, and if there’s a concurrent playoff for the gold and silver between Stenson and Rose, the bronze playoff would start on No. 1 tee about a minute after that gold playoff.

If there are more than four players tied for third, there’s a chance they could break them up into two groups, then condense them as players are knocked out with higher scores.

So there may be a T4 result this week, but we know there will be no T2 or T3.