Those moments

 Here is the reason we watch, and it has nothing to do with glory or world records or the lean at the tape that separates gold from silver. 

We watch to see Scottie Scheffler up there on the top step of the podium, bawling like a little kid.

The man has won two green jackets, and trophies named for Byron Nelson and Harry Vardon, and truckloads of money. He's already won six tournaments this year, and he's been the best golfer on the planet for 99 straight weeks now. No one's been as dominant for as long since Tiger Woods was donning red on Sundays and sending everyone into cringe mode.

But they hung that gold medal around his neck yesterday, and played the Star-Spangled Banner, and here came the waterworks. When you win not for yourself or your sponsor logos but for your country, it just hits different.

And that's why we watch the Olympic Games every four years, bloated and corporate and corrupt to the core though they may be.

We watch for the Scottie Scheffler moments, and because always, always, it's the athletes who redeem everything. We watch to see a bundle of pure guts named Bobby Finke hang on and hang on in the 1,500 freestyle and keep a 124-year streak alive for the U.S. We watch to see a former gymnast named Kristen Faulkner hop on a bike and come out of nowhere to win gold in the women's road race -- the first American to medal in the event in 40 years.

We watch to see Jamaica's Oblique Seville finish last in the men's 100-meter dash, and still achieve something remarkable: His last-place time of 9.915 actually was a tick faster than Carl Lewis' gold medal time (9.925) in 1988. 

Maybe that was because at the tape you could have thrown a blanket over the entire field in a photo finish for the ages. Noah Lyles of the U.S. won by toenail -- the first time an American had won the 100 in 20 years, and just like he predicted he would, 

Finke, meanwhile, won the only individual men's gold medal for the U.S. in the last swimming event of these Games, leading from the front and holding off an Italian and an Irishman who were squarely in his wake for most of the 14-plus minute race. In the end it took a world record for Finke to win gold; had he faltered, it would have marked the first time since 1900 that the U.S. men had failed to win an individual gold in swimming.

And Scottie Scheffler?

All he did was set fire to the Olympic course with a final-round 62, reeling in a pile of guys in front of him -- including the Spaniard Jon Rahm, who led by four strokes with eight holes to play and then utterly collapsed, failing in the end to even medal.

Scheffler, meanwhile, shot a 29 on the back side as Rahm, Rory McIlroy and defending gold medalist Xander Schauffle all faltered. And then sobbed on the medal podium when the American flag went up and the national anthem played.

"I still think that the Ryder Cup is the best tournament we have in our game, pure competition, and I think this has the potential to be right up there with it," McIlroy said when it was done. "... you think about the two tournaments that might be the purest form of competition in our sport, we don't play for money in it.

"It speaks volumes for what's important in sports."

Sure does. With a megaphone.