Brooke Henderson set to tee off at 4:11 a.m. ET, Alena Sharp will tee off at 6:28 a.m. ET on Wednesday
Women’s golf will be getting underway on Wednesday morning at Le Golf National in Paris, France at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.
Team Canada is represented by Brooke Henderson (Smiths Falls, Ont.) and Alena Sharp (Hamilton, Ont.) for the third consecutive Olympic Games. Henderson will tee off at 4:11 a.m. ET and is grouped with Hyo Joo Kim (Republic of Korea) and Xiyu Lin (China). Sharp will begin her first round at 6:28 a.m. ET and will be playing with Ana Belac (Slovenia) and Sara Kouskova (Czechia). On Thursday, Sharp’s group will begin play at 4:33 a.m. ET and Henderson’s will tee off at 6:06 a.m. ET.
Henderson is Canada’s winningest professional golfer of all time, with 13 LPGA Tour wins, including two major titles. Henderson is a graduate of Golf Canada’s national team program and is the only female athlete to win Canada’s national Junior (2012), Amateur (2013) and National Open Championship (2018 CPKC Women’s Open). This season, Henderson has earned seven top-10 finishes on the LPGA Tour including three third place finishes, she finished T8 at the CPKC Women’s Open last month. Henderson previously finished T7 at Rio 2016 and T29 at Tokyo 2020. For Henderson the experience of Paris has been memorable thus far.
“Rio was really fun, for me and I think for both of us it was a really great week. It was the first Olympic Games that golf was involved. It was really cool just to be part of the whole experience and learning the ins and outs of everything in the Olympics, which was pretty cool. Tokyo was a very different experience with no fans and very secluded and just went to the hotel and to the course. It’s fun to be at a Games where there’s so many people and there’s so much excitement surrounding it. I feel like so far it has been the best one, yeah,” said Henderson.
Sharp, a long-time LPGA Tour member most recently earned a bronze medal for Team Canada at the Santiago 2023 Pan American Games in Chile last November. Sharp has won twice on the Epson Tour and has earned 16 top-10 finishes on the LPGA Tour in her career. Last month, Sharp earned back-to-back top-20 finishes at the Dana Open (T19) and CPKC Women’s Open (T14). Sharp previously finished 30th at Rio 2016 and 49th at Tokyo 2020. Sharp will draw on her experience winning bronze at the Pan Am Games to help her in Paris.
“I think being in contention with nine holes to go and knowing I could finish, I could maybe get a medal. And being in that pressure situation, I can still remember it because it was only in November, and I feel like that’s going to help me. I feel like this time that the other two Games — like Rio I was feeling good about my game. Tokyo, not so good. This week, I feel like coming here, I could actually win now. Tokyo, I didn’t think that. I wasn’t coming to — not participate but do my best. The last two weeks playing before here were really solid. I had two really good finishes and coming into my stride at the right time. I feel like I’m more confident as the week goes on and had good prep. So ready to get started,” said Sharp.
Henderson and Sharp will look to become the first Canadian to win an Olympic golf medal since George Lyon’s gold medal at St. Louis 1904. Henderson’s T7 at Rio 2016 is the best recent finish by a Canadian since golf returned to the Olympics in 2016. Last week the men’s golf wrapped up with Corey Conners finishing T9 and Nick Taylor T30.
For a live leaderboard, click here.
To watch the free live stream of women’s golf on CBC Gem, click here.