Two Tuesdays ago, as the golfing world erupted in chaos and anger, Wyndham Clark was in no hurry to craft a shocking and awe-inspiring Twitter post. In a meeting with the PGA Tour commissioner, he wasn’t upset about the surprise deal with Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund. He didn’t moralize or criticize and actually did nothing but play golf.
His choice this Tuesday fell on the Los Angeles Country Club, where nine days later the US Open, their first major tournament, would take place. One member of the club was Clark’s caddy, a friend-turned-tutor who knew some of the secrets of a north course that only a handful of the game’s biggest stars had ever seen: how a putt might break here, how the speed might vary there, how hard the fairways could get.
The reward came on Sunday night when 29-year-old Clark overtook Rory McIlroy by one shot at the US Open and rose into the sacred fraternity of major championship winners. Through Sunday, Clark’s best result at a major was a tie 75th in a PGA championship. His previous two Open appearances were even worse, ending in missed cuts.
But his mother, his “always-there supporter,” who died nearly a decade ago, always gave him an ambitious admonition: “Play big.”
He’s proving to be a formidable opponent this tour season and hints that despite his great achievements, he could soon be a force on the sport’s biggest stages. After tweaking his irons a few degrees and his swing being overseen and honed by Clark and his caddy rather than a squad of advisors, he came to Los Angeles after winning the Wells Fargo Championship and four others since early February achieved top 10 placements.
That May Wells Fargo victory at Quail Hollow in Charlotte, NC, was played against a menacing list of rivals whose surnames — McIlroy and Spieth, Scott and Day — were synonymous with golfing brilliance even before Clark graduated from college.
Clark was encouraged by the win at Quail Hollow, a past and future PGA Championship venue. He had, he argued, beaten big champions on a big tournament-level course.
“I just feel like I can compete with the best players in the world,” he said last week, “and I see myself as one of them.”
Now he most certainly is.
As Clark waited at the first tee on Sunday afternoon with Rickie Fowler, the other half of the Open’s last team and a tight but not quite good golf club, he’d been abiding by his mother’s creed all week. He had hit a 64 under par 64 on Thursday, better than many big champions in the 156-man field, and followed with a 67 and a 69.
It was good enough for part of the lead before the finals, with Fowler and Clark both 10-under. McIlroy, a four-time major winner mired in a nine-year drought, was knocked back by a gunshot at sunrise on Sunday. Scottie Scheffler, the world’s best player, was three points behind Clark and Fowler.
It took Clark just four shots to take the lead. The first hole, with its wide fairway and views of Beverly Hilton, has been one of his favorite spots throughout the tournament since he started his Open with a nearly 33-foot putt for Eagle. He didn’t perform as well on Sunday, but his birdie was enough to take sole control of first place after a McIlroy birdie allowed him to briefly secure part of the lead.
Clark’s time at the top ended quickly as he bogeyed the second hole for the second time this week. Fowler also slipped with a bogey, the start of a flameout for a player who shot a 62 Thursday, a single-round record for an Open.
Clark birdied the fourth hole, the first of five par 3 tests on the course along Wilshire Boulevard, putting him at 11 Under. McIlroy was 10-under and Fowler was 9. Scheffler, stable but not spectacular, hadn’t changed his score in any direction.
The sixth hole unsettled players for days, a par 4 mix with a blind tee and challenging terrain. Clark had birdied there on Thursday before hitting par on Friday and Saturday.
On Sunday afternoon, Clark was at the tee and flung his shot 266 yards to put a little more distance between himself and everyone else. It came to a stop in the grass, which while dense was not prohibitive compared to some other places on the track. He cocked his head to the left, peered at the pin about 15 yards away, looked down, and swung. The ball slammed onto the green, rolled past the cup but set up a short putt for a birdie and a two-stroke lead.
It was the eighth hole where Clark’s advantage was fully realized when his second shot landed in the surrounding green, which looked more receptive to a scythe than a club. According to those responsible for the tournament, Clark’s first attempt to escape cost a total of 20 centimeters – a sum that seemed about 20 centimeters too high. He escaped by shooting a shot across the green into the right rough and eventually saved the bogey, cutting his lead to one shot.
Clark and McIlroy both played the front nine for 34, one under. For both, however, the defense was usually more painful. Their positions on the leaderboards remained unchanged until the 14th hole, when McIlroy’s ball wedged into the side of a bunker. Given a free hand, he dropped into the fescue near the hole but could do nothing better than bogey off the green.
Clark’s experience was far more comfortable, his second shot leaving him less than two dozen feet from the par 5’s marker, giving him an eagle opportunity. Clark’s putt went just wide of the right edge of the cup, but a subsequent birdie attempt failed, increasing his lead to three shots.
it was short Clark missed a par chance on the 15th hole when his putt didn’t break sufficiently, and then his drive shot on the 16th hole landed in a bunker. Despite impressive wedge play on his third shot, he soon made a short putt and Clark’s second straight bogey.
McIlroy, who struggled on the greens for most of the day, missed a birdie putt by just one shot on the 17th hole, his familiar fear resurfaced and the prospect of the Open’s first playoff since 2008 dwindled a bit more.
McIlroy finished the game nine-under and scored a par on the final hole where Clark had par or birdie each of the first three rounds. If Clark could stick to that story, the galleries know he’d be a big champion – just as he concluded last month that he was all but ready to be.
Par, stay on 10 under, finish on 10 under. His eyes glittered.
He had played big.