“Mostly we were just trying to stay patient,” Scheffler said in that familiar tone that makes it sound like he’s taking out the garbage when what he’s really doing is landing a fighter jet on an aircraft carrier in a typhoon. “When I saw that Rahm had gotten to 20, I kind of changed a little bit mentally to just really try to do my best to move my way up the leaderboard. I didn’t even really know if I was in contention or not. I was just trying to do my best to make some birdies and start moving up and maybe get a medal or something like that. And I was fortunate to execute some shots there down the stretch.”

Scheffler’s humility can be as incredulous as it is infectious. Only the No.1 player in the world who casually leads the PGA Tour in 33 statistical categories could honestly say he couldn’t make sense out of the electronic leaderboards at Le Golf National, and you believe him. Just playing some golf, making some birdies, talking with my mates.

Pretty good for a guy who by the middle of the week confessed he couldn’t read the greens at Le Golf National, a venue that emerged as a fitting stage for raucous crowds and even louder golf.

Indeed, Scheffler’s win, combined with daily attendance that reached bizarre numbers of 20,000 or more, routinely serenading individual players like it was a soccer game or rock concert or both gives a kind of seal of approval to Olympic golf. Golf in the games might just have found a kind of notch above regular weeks despite a traditional 72-hole format that some have characterised as boring and run-of-the-mill. It was anything but for Scheffler, and even for those who didn’t win a medal, like Rahm, who seemed in command through the front nine of the final round before the back-nine 39, said the mistakes were hard to take, but not as much as disappointing his country.

“It’s not like it was terrible,” Rahm said, who went from gold to a tie for fifth after a 72nd-hole bogey. “The three-putt situation has been an issue the whole week. The main mistake is the third shot on 14. I can’t do what I did on the third shot. Can’t go left. Ended up paying the price for compounding mistakes on that hole. “I don’t remember the last time I played a tournament and I felt this – I don’t know what the word is – because I not only feel like I let myself down but also to just not get it done for the whole country of Spain. It’s a lot more painful than I would like it to be. I’ve gotten the question, where this tournament would rank in my opinion or what I would think it would feel like to win, and I think by losing today, I’m getting a much deeper appreciation of what this tournament means to me than if I had won any medal. I’m getting a taste of how much it really mattered.”

Scheffler, whose picture is likely in some dictionaries under the entry for “self-effacing”, strongly credited caddie Ted Scott. Scott’s experience as Bubba Watson’s caddie during the US team’s appearance at Le Golf National for the 2018 Ryder Cup gave Scheffler a valuable set of eyes on the greens the best player in golf confessed he really couldn’t read. Scott reset Scheffler’s eyes after he started his second round with an outward two-over 38. He played his final 45 holes at Le Golf National in 17-under.

“I felt like I was doing a lot of things well, and I wasn’t getting a lot out of it,” Scheffler said of the middle of his final round when he made six pars in a row after starting with three birdies. “I was just watching great players fly up the leaderboard, and I feel like they’re getting further and further away from me.

“And, you know, once again, I always go back to Teddy because he does a really good job of making sure that I’m in the right head space to where I can stay there and be committed to the shot. This week was definitely one of those weeks.”

Scheffler wasn’t ready to rank this win in a different place in his career, but in a lot of ways it was similar to what he’s done when he’s played his very best and yet it stands on its own, too.

“I don’t think too much about my legacy as a golfer,” he said, waving aside self-importance while self-consciously adjusting the gold medal around his neck the way a teenager might play around with an uncomfortable necktie. “That’s not really something that comes to mind. I love being out here competing. It’s one of my favourite things in the world to do and it’s a great joy in my life. It’s something that I work very hard at. I’m proud to be sitting here with a gold medal. I’m just out here competing and trying to stay present and working as hard as I can and trying to get the most out of myself.

He might not think about legacy. But Scheffler, the Olympian, made his own bit of US Olympic history in Paris. Right up there with the greats. It was a different, but uniquely elevated place. Like the top of a podium.

Or in Scheffler’s case, the same as he ever was.