GREENSBORO — From elation on the Olympic medal stand in Tokyo and an outpouring of appreciation in Slovakia, to back to the grind of the PGA Tour for Rory Sabbatini.
His self-described love-hate relationship with his game returned a 4-under-par 66 during Thursday’s opening round of the Wyndham Championship, leaving him four shots behind tournament leader Russell Henley and in a particularly palatable position considering some of the hiccups he has experienced this year.
More recently, a trip around the world and perhaps the journey of Sabbatini’s golf career delivered him here to Sedgefield Country Club, where he birdied three of his last five holes in the first round while playing in the heat of the afternoon wave.
Sabbatini had missed the cut in 10 of his previous 15 events on Tour, before firing an Olympic record 61 during the final round of the men’s competition to finish one shot shy of Xander Schauffele and claim the silver medal.
“It’s really hard to put it into words,” Sabbatini said here at the Wyndham. “It was an overwhelming experience, the entirety of everything with the Olympics. Obviously watching as many as I’ve had, you really don’t truly grasp how amazing the experience is until you’re there. It was incredible. Every which way, every part of it was amazing.”
The 45-year-old Sabbatini is from South Africa, but in the Olympics he represented Slovakia, the home country of his wife, Martina, and stepson.
His wife’s cousin, Rastislav Antal, was vice president of the Slovak Golf Association when the idea was born for Sabbatini to become a naturalized citizen and help grow interest in golf for a nation that only has about 30 courses. He completed the citizenship changed in December 2018. He’s now listed as hailing from Bratislava, Slovakia, on the PGA Tour player roster.
His wife caddied for him during the Olympics. He said after the medal ceremony they returned to the Olympic Village around 11 p.m. Tokyo time, with their flight to Slovakia departing at 7 a.m. the next morning.
“We did, should I say, a slight overplaying of celebratory features,” Sabbatini said. “It was a long night. There was not much sleep, not much memory, but at least had an 11-and-a-half-hour flight to recover.”
Then, back in Slovakia, Sabbatini said the welcome was breathtaking.
“It was absolutely overwhelming,” he said. “People stopping us in the street everywhere, people pulling their car over on the side of the road to stop to congratulate us. It was incredible. You could really feel the support, the appreciation and just all the emotion from the people.
“Just the excitement of all these junior golfers and all these new junior golfers, it is what we hoped for. Just plant that seed, create future generations of golfers, of hopefully professional golfers on all different stages around the world and hopefully future Olympic competitors.”
Sabbatini has compiled three top-10 finishes across his eight Wyndham starts. At No. 141 in the FedExCup standings, he said he figures to need a finish among the top 10 again here at Sedgefield in the Tour’s regular-season finale to have a chance at reaching golf’s postseason.
“It’s been a very frustrating year for me,” he said. “I felt like I’ve been on the cusp of getting my game cleaned up and going in the direction I wanted to go. It’s been kind of a love-hate relationship with my golf game this year.”
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The top 125 players in the FedExCup standings advance to The Northern Trust next week, the playoff opener, thus making the Wyndham the final decider for postseason positioning.
“I know I’ve got a tough job,” Sabbatini said. “It’s a good field, a lot of good players, so I’ve just got to keep my head down and keep trying to move forward and hopefully make it to next week.”
Adam Smith is a sports reporter for the Burlington Times-News and USA TODAY Network. You can reach him by email at asmith@thetimesnews.com or @adam_smithTN on Twitter.
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This article originally appeared on Times-News: Around the world to the Wyndham: Olympic medalist Rory Sabbatini journeys to promising start
