Clark, Wyndham (1993- )

Subterms

    Latest story

    150 Shares189 Views

    At the British Open, a Mom’s Influence Looms Large for Many Golfers

    by

    Golf has long had a tradition of fathers and sons, but when the British Open was last held at Royal Liverpool in 2014, Rory McIlroy put golf’s moms on equal footing.In the beginning, there was Old Tom Morris and his son, Tommy, both of St. Andrews. The father won the British Open — the only championship then — four times and his namesake son won it four times, too. Yes, wet wool, 19th-century golf, in all its paternalistic glory. The men marched off the first tee and into a heavy sea wind and nobody knew when, or if, they would come back.And ever since, fathers have been raising sons in the game, both generations dreaming of hoisted trophies. O.B. Keeler spilled barrels of ink writing about Bobby Jones and his little-boy-blue start in golf at the behest of his golf-loving father, Robert Purmedus Jones (also known as ‘The Colonel’) who was a prosperous Atlanta lawyer.If Arnold Palmer said it once, he said it a thousand times: his father, Deacon, the course superintendent and head pro at Latrobe Country Club in western Pennsylvania, taught young Arnold how to grip a club once and only once. Palmer never changed it.Jack Nicklaus’s pharmacist father, Charlie, a three-sport athlete at Ohio State, started his son, Jackie, in golf as an oversized 10-year-old in Columbus, Ohio, in the summer of 1950, at their club, Scioto Country Club. Mid-country, midcentury — middle class, at its most northern tier. Donald Hall’s “Fathers Playing Catch with Sons” is largely about baseball but Charlie and Jackie on the course in the 1950s could have fit right in.Twelve years later, Jack Nicklaus defeated Arnold Palmer in an 18-hole playoff at Oakmont Country Club and claimed the first of his record 18 major titles, the 1962 U.S. Open. It was Father’s Day. Since then (after a date change) most U.S. Opens have concluded on Father’s Day and most years the father-son relationship is an elemental part of the winner’s life story.This next phrase is known throughout golf: Tiger and Earl. The green-side hug between father and son after Woods won the 1997 Masters Tournament is one of the iconic moments in golf history. It was Tiger’s first major as a pro and he won by 12 shots. Nine years later, Woods fell into his caddie’s arms, after winning the British Open at Royal Liverpool, 10 weeks after Earl Woods died at age 74.Tiger Woods and his father Earl after Woods won the 1997 Masters.Associated Press Photo Dave MartinBut in 2014 Royal Liverpool became the scene of an evolving narrative when Rory McIlroy, 25-years-old and the lone child of working-class parents from outside Belfast, won the British Open. It was his third major title and in a lovely, old-fashioned gesture at the awards presentation, with thousands of fans ringing the 18th green, McIlroy dedicated the win to his mother.“This is the first major I’ve won when my mum has been here,” he said. “Mum, this one’s for you.”Rosie McDonald McIlroy, who helped pay for her son’s overseas junior-golf travel by way of her shift work at a 3M plant, was beaming. Later, she tentatively put several fingers on the winner’s claret jug as her son grasped it tightly.Five years later, Woods won the 2019 Masters. It was kind of a shocker: he hadn’t won a major in 11 years. In victory, his mother, Kultida, born and raised in Thailand, was standing in a grassy knob about 10 yards off the 18th green. She couldn’t see her son’s winning putt, but she could hear the thunderous response to it. Her face was painted in pride. In victory, Woods spoke in a soft voice about how his mother would rise at 5:30 in the morning to drive Tiger in a Plymouth Duster to nine-hole Pee-wee tournaments, 90 minutes there, 90 minutes back.Last year, when Woods was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame, ‘Tida,’ known within Woods’s tight circle for being tough and direct, was in the first row, beaming just as Rosie McIlroy was in 2014.Kultida Woods smiled as Tiger Woods made his way toward his family after winning the 2019 Masters.Mike Segar/ReutersWoods talked, without notes, about the many times his mother brought him to a par-3 course near Tiger’s boyhood home in Southern California, giving him 50 cents for a hot dog and 25 cents for the end-of-day call home. Woods staked his early and successful putting contests with those quarters his mother gave him. Tiger, telling personal stories about his mother, and Tida, laughing with cameras on her, was a rare personal moment for both.This year at the Los Angeles Country Club the final round of the U.S. Open fell, as usual, on Father’s Day, but the day belonged to a mother and her son.The winner Wyndham Clark had heard Woods talk about his own mother at Augusta National during the Masters and at the Hall of Fame induction. It stuck with him.Breast cancer had ended his mother Lise Clark’s life 10 years ago, when Wyndham was still a teenager. He nearly quit golf after she died. He said his mother had a nickname for him — ‘Winner’ — and had a two-word mantra for him: “Play big.”The technical aspects of the game were not her forte. They weren’t for Rose McIlroy or Tida Woods, either.When Clark was in high school, his mother came to one of his matches. She watched him make an eight-foot putt and clapped enthusiastically for her son.“Mom,” Clark told mother as he came off the green. “I just made triple bogey.”Mom didn’t know and mom didn’t care. Her son had holed a putt.Minutes after winning the U.S. Open, Clark said, “I just felt like my mom was watching over me today.” Mother’s Day, in a manner of speaking. A wistful one.“I just felt like my mom was watching over me today,” Wyndham Clark said after winning the U.S. Open in June.Matt York/Associated PressAnd now the British Open was once again at Royal Liverpool. After two rounds the English golfer Tommy Fleetwood was alone in second place, five shots behind the leader, Brian Harman. Everywhere Fleetwood goes on the course he is greeted as “Tommy-lad.” Even McIlroy went out his way to find Fleetwood, after an opening-round 66, to give him a “Tommy-lad!” of his own.Fleetwood, one of the most likable players in the game today, grew up in modest circumstances about 30 miles north, in Southport, where his mother was a hairdresser. Fleetwood has a distinct look, an upturned nose that is often sunburned, blue eyes that look almost plugged in, and long, flowing hair. Sue Fleetwood longed to cut her son’s hair but Tommy-lad wouldn’t have it. Sue Fleetwood died last year at 60, two years after a cancer diagnosis.“She took me everywhere,” Fleetwood said Friday night, on the one-year anniversary of her death. Rain was starting to fall and the air was cooling.“She was always the driver. She would always take me to the range. To the golf course. To wherever I wanted to go. She was always a very supporting influence. She was a very tough woman but she never said no to taking me anywhere. She was great to me.”There was nothing maudlin about his tone. Fleetwood was talking about golf and his mother and he was smiling. Another mother’s day, in a manner of speaking, was coming. Win, lose or otherwise, another mother’s day was coming for another golfing son. More

    More stories

    • 100 Shares179 Views

      in Golf

      Names Old and New Top British Open Leaderboard

      by

      Conditions were calm at Royal Liverpool as the final men’s golf major of the year began. Don’t expect them to stay that way.A strategy for winning one of golf’s major championships only rarely looks like this: Find your flight canceled and the next one delayed, walk about a half-mile to passport control, endure a grinding wait at baggage claim less than 48 hours before the tournament’s first tee times and stare down jet lag.It worked well enough for Stewart Cink on Thursday at the British Open.“When the gun goes off and you start in the tournament, you’ve got that adrenaline, and adrenaline does wonders for your jet lag,” Cink, 50, said. It also seemed to do plenty good for his scorecard, which reported a three-under-par 68 that positioned him high on the first-round leaderboard at northwest England’s Royal Liverpool Golf Club.It is forever a dangerous game to forecast a tournament’s fate after a single round, and it seemed particularly risky after the early going at Royal Liverpool, where the leaderboard’s top reaches blended old names and new ones and an army of formidable, familiar challengers lurked just below.There was Cink, who won the 2009 Open at Turnberry in Scotland by outlasting Tom Watson, then 59, in a playoff. But Christo Lamprecht, an amateur who plays for Georgia Tech, finished his five-under round with the lead. Tommy Fleetwood, a past Open runner-up, and Emiliano Grillo, who birdied five of his last eight holes, matched Lamprecht later in the day, letting them begin Friday with one-stroke advantages over Brian Harman, Adrián Otaegui and Antoine Rozner.Fleetwood, Grillo and Lamprecht had two-stroke leads over a group that included Cink and Wyndham Clark, the winner of last month’s U.S. Open.The amateur Christo Lamprecht finished the first round in a three-way tie for the lead.Jared C. Tilton/Getty ImagesRory McIlroy, who won the British Open in 2014, when the tournament was last played at Royal Liverpool, finished at par, and Cameron Smith, looking to defend the title he won at St. Andrews in Scotland last summer, was one over.With the weather at the course, known as Hoylake, expected to deteriorate during the tournament — the R&A’s chief executive, Martin Slumbers, listed the weekend’s options as “wet” or “very wet” — Thursday was perhaps the best chance for the 156-man field to make shots without diabolical complications. (The players certainly had better odds of shooting par or better than finishing one of the course’s soft-serve ice cream cones before seeing it melt into a sticky, spectacular mess.)Fleetwood, who is from Southport, England, just 30 miles north, is a crowd favorite nearly everywhere but especially in Britain. On Thursday, he delivered the kind of sterling play that has lately eluded him early in the major championships. He had not finished below par in a major’s first round since the 2021 Open at Royal St. George’s, where he ultimately tied for 33rd.“As first rounds go, that’s absolutely the one you wanted, and to get off to a good start feels good,” said Fleetwood, who struggled with early tees but left No. 5 emboldened by a birdie. He returned the stroke on the next hole, before picking it up again on the seventh. He birdied four holes on the back nine and started a streak of three at No. 14.England’s Tommy Fleetwood on the 14th green. He birdied four holes on the back nine.Paul Childs/ReutersLamprecht’s rise began sooner, with a birdie on the third hole. But it came only after a poor tee shot at No. 1 — when he felt probably his “only bit of nerves” all day, he said — that prompted a pep talk from Devin Stanton, his caddie and his assistant coach at Georgia Tech.“Listen, you’re playing the Open as an amateur,” Lamprecht said Stanton told him. “No need to stress.”Lamprecht, who at 6-foot-8 is among the tallest players ever to compete in the British Open, now being held for the 151st time, responded in force. He stumbled twice on the back nine but used four birdies within that stretch to finish at 66.“I think the way I played today I earned to be on the top of the leaderboard, as of now,” Lamprecht, 22, said. “It’s not a cocky thing to say. I just personally think I believe in myself, and I guess stepping onto the first tee box if you’re a professional or a competitor, you should be believing that you should be the best standing there.”Cink, a Georgia Tech alumnus who still uses the practice facility there, has gawked over Lamprecht’s talents, including his enormous power, and marveled again on Thursday afternoon.“As a 50-year-old golfer seeing a guy like him, he is pretty much like your basic nightmare, watching a guy like him coming up,” Cink said on Thursday. “He can hit it like 330 in the air and he hits those little shots around the green so soft, it’s amazing. He’s got a lot of really good potential in front of him.”Not that Cink was ready to cede the tournament to Lamprecht, not after a day when he almost entirely avoided Royal Liverpool’s 84 brutish bunkers. Their flatness, Cink observed, sends a momentum-loaded ball toward the lip, unimpeded by gravity. And despite his score, he did not regard Hoylake as particularly suited to his strengths.“But playing smart and being disciplined and patient and keeping your heart in the right place, that fits my game,” said Cink, who turned 50 in May and has been mulling whether to play more events on the PGA Tour Champions, as the senior tour is known these days.The defending champion Cameron Smith, left, with Wyndham Clark during the first round at Royal Liverpool on Thursday.Paul Childs/Reuters“It’s required on courses like this, and it comes down to execution,” said Cink, whose wife, Lisa, is his caddie this week. “Today I executed very well, and it was pretty evident in the scorecard. It was a nice clean day. Putted well from inside eight feet. That’s the kind of stuff you have to do in a major.”The cut, set at the top 70 plus ties, is expected Friday night. Headed into the second round, the past major winners Bryson DeChambeau, Dustin Johnson and Justin Thomas were all in danger of seeing their ambitions of winning the claret jug end quickly. Thomas, who won the 2017 and 2022 P.G.A. Championships, shot 11 over on Thursday, putting him in a tie for 153rd.But some other major champions, including Brooks Koepka, Hideki Matsuyama and Scottie Scheffler, were only four strokes off the lead, laying the groundwork for a jostle toward the top.Cink insisted Thursday that the tournament was hardly the exclusive dominion of the game’s younger players. Two years ago, he noted, Phil Mickelson won the P.G.A. Championship at 50, and then there was Watson’s for-the-ages performance in 2009.“I have no doubts that I can win this,” Cink said. “It’s going to take a lot. It’s going to take some really, really exceptional play on my behalf, but it’s in there.”Indeed, even a player as preternaturally confident as Clark — last month he said that his May victory at the Wells Fargo Championship had (correctly) persuaded him that he was good enough to win a major — noted the rigors of a tournament like this one.“This is just Day 1,” Clark said. “Got three more days.” More

    • 113 Shares179 Views

      in Golf

      The Five Players to Watch at the Scottish Open

      by

      Many of the top golfers will be in Scotland. Here are a few hoping to break into their ranks.A major title won’t be up for grabs — that will come a week later at the British Open — but the Genesis Scottish Open, which begins on Thursday at the Renaissance Club in North Berwick, should generate a lot of attention given the caliber of contenders playing.Eight of the top 10 players in the world rankings, including No. 1 Scottie Scheffler, No. 3 Rory McIlroy, and No. 4 Patrick Cantlay, will be in the field. Attempting to defend his crown will be No. 6 Xander Schauffele, who won by a stroke in 2022.Here are five others to keep an eye on.Tommy Fleetwood has had his moments in the Scottish Open, finishing second in 2020 and in a tie for fourth last year.Kevin C. Cox/Getty ImagesTommy FleetwoodOvershadowed during last month’s final-round battle in the United States Open at Los Angeles Country Club between the eventual champ, Wyndham Clark, and McIlroy was the seven-under 63 fired on Sunday by England’s Tommy Fleetwood, 32, who became the first player to shoot that score twice at the Open. His other 63 came in 2018 at Shinnecock Hills Golf Club in Southampton, Long Island.Nonetheless, Fleetwood, now ranked No. 22, failed on both occasions to win the trophy, and in more than 100 starts has yet to capture a tournament on the PGA Tour. He came very close the week before the U.S. Open, losing in a playoff to Nick Taylor of Canada at the RBC Canadian Open. In May, he tied for fifth at the Wells Fargo Championship.Fleetwood, a two-time member of Team Europe in the Ryder Cup, has had his moments in the Scottish Open, finishing second in 2020 and in a tie for fourth last year.Justin Thomas, 30, won the 2022 P.G.A. Championship but has fared poorly in this year’s other majors. Stacy Revere/Getty ImagesJustin ThomasWith his tie for ninth at the Travelers Championship last month, his first top-10 finish since March, it seemed Thomas, one of the game’s top players, was back on track.Or not.A week later, he missed the cut at the Rocket Mortgage Classic in Detroit.Thomas, who has dropped to No. 20 in the world, struggled mightily in the second round of the U.S. Open. He hit just five fairways on his way to shooting an 11-over 81, missing the cut by 12 strokes.“It’s pretty humiliating and embarrassing shooting scores like that at a golf course I really, really liked,” he said.Thomas, 30, who won the 2022 P.G.A. Championship, has also fared poorly in this year’s other majors. He missed the cut at the Masters and tied for 65th in the P.G.A.With the British Open a week away, this would be a good time for him to regain his old form.Rickie Fowler’s victory two weeks ago at the Rocket Mortgage Classic was his first in four years.Cliff Hawkins/Getty ImagesRickie FowlerSpeaking of old form, with his victory two weeks ago at the Rocket Mortgage Classic, his first in four years, Fowler, 34, is officially back.It was no surprise given how well Fowler, one of the tour’s most popular players, was performing in recent months. He has finished in the top 15 or better in nine of his 11 tournaments since mid-March.In the U.S. Open, he started off with a record-setting 62 and was tied for the lead after three rounds. Although he faded in the final round with a 75 to tie for fifth, he played well the next week at the Travelers Championship, tying for 13th. In the third round, Fowler, who is ranked No. 21 after starting the year at No. 103, flirted with a 59 before shooting a 60. A week later came the triumph in Michigan.A lot was expected of Fowler, a star at Oklahoma State University, when he turned pro in 2009, and he didn’t disappoint. In 2014, he finished in the top five of each of the four majors. In 2015, he won the Players Championship.The U.S. Open gave Wyndham Clark, ranked No. 11 in the world, sudden fame.Andy Lyons/Getty ImagesWyndham ClarkIt wasn’t too long ago when casual golf fans were probably saying to themselves: Wyndham who?The U.S. Open changed that, giving Clark, ranked No. 11 in the world, sudden fame.The question is: Was his performance a fluke — other less-heralded players have claimed major championships only to vanish soon afterward — or will Clark, 29, be a force on the tour?Clark picked up his first victory at this year’s Wells Fargo Classic and has the game to win more tournaments, including majors. He hits it a long way, and how he was able to hold off McIlroy down the stretch at the Open in Los Angeles was something to behold.“It’s been a whirlwind few weeks and an amazing season so far, all coming together in L.A. a few weeks ago,” Clark said. “I’m looking forward to keeping things going over the summer.”In June, Viktor Hovland, 25, captured his fourth tour victory and biggest yet, the Memorial Tournament.Darron Cummings/Associated PressViktor HovlandIn three of the past four major championships, Hovland, ranked No. 5, has been in the hunt. Sooner or later, he’s bound to break through.Hovland, who would be the first man from Norway to win a major, was the co-leader with McIlroy heading into the final round of last year’s British Open. He faltered with a 74 to finish in a tie for fourth.At this year’s Masters, he opened with a 65 and, though he had his troubles the next two rounds, was still only three back going into the final round. For the second straight major, however, he closed with a 74 to finish in a tie for seventh, failing to make a birdie until the 13th hole. A month later, he tied for second in the P.G.A. Championship, two behind the winner, Brooks Koepka.In June, Hovland, 25, captured his fourth tour victory and biggest yet, the Memorial Tournament, in a playoff over Denny McCarthy. Hovland knocked in a 30-footer on 17 and saved par from five feet on 18 in regulation. In the playoff, he made a seven-footer for the win. More

    • 138 Shares179 Views

      in Golf

      Rory McIlroy Just Misses a Hollywood Ending at the U.S. Open

      by

      Despite briefly sharing the lead with the eventual champion, Wyndham Clark, McIlroy settled for second but vowed he would get a fifth major title.It might have been fitting if someone from Holywood won this year’s U.S. Open at Los Angeles Country Club. But Rory McIlroy, born in the Northern Ireland town of Holywood, is not having that kind of year.On Sunday, McIlroy was chasing his first major championship title in nine years, a drought that continues to shadow a luminous career that began with four major titles from 2011 to 2014. In April, he missed the cut at the Masters Tournament. A month later, he finished tied for seventh at the P.G.A. Championship.Then, on June 6, McIlroy, the most vociferous loyalist supporting the PGA Tour in its feud with the Saudi-back LIV Golf circuit, learned only a few hours before news broke that the two tours had shockingly formed a business partnership.McIlroy, like almost all of the PGA Tour’s players, felt blindsided.But on Sunday, a buoyant, smiling McIlroy, 34, was again enthusiastically chasing another major title, in the final round of the 123rd U.S. Open. He birdied the opening hole and for most of the next four hours seemed poised to reel in the eventual tournament winner, Wyndham Clark, the third-round co-leader with Rickie Fowler.McIlroy, however, never birdied another hole, and in the end, Clark, after some nervous closing moments, outlasted McIlroy by a stroke as both golfers shot even-par 70s. It was McIlroy’s third runner-up finish at a major and his 10th finish in the top five of a major since 2014.“I fought to the very end, and I’m getting closer,” McIlroy said Sunday of his chase for a fifth major title, adding: “I just got to keep putting myself in these positions and, you know, sooner or later it’s going to happen for me.”McIlroy said he felt a link between his performance on Sunday and his second-place finish at last year’s British Open at St. Andrews.“The last two real chances I’ve had at majors have been pretty similar performances,” he said. “Not doing a lot wrong.”McIlroy’s pursuit went down to the final strokes of the event, as Clark, playing in the final group of the day, was forced to execute a two-putt from 60 feet on the 18th green to clinch the championship.“I fought to the very end, and I’m getting closer,” McIlroy said of his chase for a fifth major championship.Michael Madrid/USA Today Sports Via Reuters ConMcIlroy conceded that he was hoping for a miscue.“You don’t want to wish bad on anyone, but you’re really hoping for a three-putt,” he said. “You’re hoping to somehow get into a playoff to keep giving yourself a chance. You’re rooting for one guy, and that guy is yourself at that point. A mistake can give you a glimmer of hope.“But Wyndham was pretty much rock solid all day, and that was a great two-putt at the last.”McIlroy’s fourth round began auspiciously as he reached the green on the par-5, 585-yard first hole with his second shot and two-putted for an opening birdie that briefly moved him into a tie for the tournament lead.But he struggled to capitalize on that early momentum even as he registered par after par — a streak of 12 in all. He showed nerve in sinking several tense four-foot par putts but failed to get his approach shots close enough for easier birdie attempts.McIlroy was hanging on but could not convert any putt longer than seven feet throughout the middle of his round. On the eighth green, he pulled an eight-foot birdie putt well left of the hole, a missed opportunity that McIlroy specifically mentioned in his post-round news conference.At the par-3 ninth hole, McIlroy’s towering approach shot with an iron came to rest 14 feet from the flag. As he walked onto the green, fans in two packed grandstands implored him to make a fairly straightforward putt that would have put him in a tie with Clark, but again McIlroy could not seize the moment.McIlroy’s run of consecutive pars ended at the par-5 14th hole after his tee shot bounded into the rough left of the fairway. He was forced to lay up short of the green with a second shot, although he then faced a short wedge shot to the green.McIlroy later said he was choosing between two clubs for the shot, but he felt a wind gust just before he began his swing, and that impeded the shot’s momentum.“I had the right club, but I might have just had to wait an extra 15 or 20 seconds to let that little gust settle,” he said.McIlroy caught a break on No. 14 when his ball embedded in a grassy bank.Richard Heathcote/Getty ImagesMcIlroy’s golf ball landed about a foot short of perfect and failed to clear a large bunker protecting the front of the 14th green. The ball embedded in a grassy bank between the sand and the green.He was granted free relief in the grass to the right of the bunker, but his dicey, downhill chip to the green rolled 26 feet from the hole. That led to bogey, and McIlroy fell to nine under par, which extended Clark’s lead to two strokes.McIlroy closed with four routine pars.He was asked at the conclusion of his Sunday news conference if he was growing weary of answering questions about the nine-year wait for a fifth major championship victory. He conceded that it was exhausting but added: “At the same time, when I do finally win this next major, it’s going to be really, really sweet. I would go through 100 Sundays like this to get my hands on another major championship.” More

    • 75 Shares169 Views

      in Golf

      Wyndham Clark Captures the U.S. Open

      by

      Clark, with only one PGA Tour victory to his name, seemed to come out of nowhere to dominate the field at Los Angeles Country Club.Two Tuesdays ago, as the golf world erupted into chaos and fury, Wyndham Clark did not rush to write a shock-and-awe Twitter post. He did not fume in a meeting with the PGA Tour commissioner about the surprise pact with Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund. He did not moralize or criticize or, really, do much of anything other than play golf.His chosen course that Tuesday was the Los Angeles Country Club, which would host the U.S. Open, its debut major tournament, nine days later. A member of the club was Clark’s caddie, 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 firm the fairways might become.The payoff came Sunday evening, when Clark, 29, outlasted Rory McIlroy at the U.S. Open by one stroke and lurched into the hallowed fraternity of major championship winners.”I’ve dreamed about this moment for so long.”Soak it all in, @Wyndham_Clark! #USOpen pic.twitter.com/0LO1hgyocV— U.S. Open (USGA) (@usopengolf) June 19, 2023
      Until Sunday, Clark’s best finish in a major had been a tie for 75th at a P.G.A. Championship. His two previous Open appearances were even worse, ending with missed cuts.But his mother, his “always there supporter” who died nearly a decade ago, used to offer an ambitious admonition: “Play big.”This tour season, he has, emerging as a perilous foe and suggesting that he, despite his major record, could soon be a power on the game’s greatest stages. With his irons adjusted a few degrees and his swing monitored and finessed not by a platoon of advisers but only by Clark and his caddie, he arrived in Los Angeles having won the Wells Fargo Championship and having earned four other top-10 finishes since early February.That Wells Fargo win, in May at Quail Hollow in Charlotte, N.C., had come against a foreboding list of rivals whose surnames — McIlroy and Spieth, Scott and Day — were bywords for golfing brilliance even before Clark finished college.The victory at Quail Hollow, a past and future P.G.A. Championship site, emboldened Clark. He had, he reasoned, beaten major champions on a major-tournament-caliber course.“I just feel like I can compete with the best players in the world,” he said last week, “and I think of myself as one of them.”Now he most certainly is.“There’s been so many times I’ve visualized being here in front of you guys and winning this championship, and I just feel like it was my time,” Clark said during the trophy presentation near the stately clubhouse.By the time Clark waited on Sunday afternoon in the first tee box with Rickie Fowler, the other half of the Open’s final pairing and a prince of golf’s close-but-not-quite club, he had been adhering to his mother’s creed all week. He had fired a six-under-par 64 on Thursday, better than many major champions in the 156-man field, and followed it with a 67 and a 69.It was good enough for a share of the lead heading into the final round, with Fowler and Clark both at 10 under. McIlroy, a four-time major victor mired in a nine-year drought, trailed by a shot at sunrise on Sunday. Scottie Scheffler, the world’s top-ranked player, was three back from Clark and Fowler.Clark after sinking his final putt on No. 18.Etienne Laurent/EPA, via ShutterstockClark required only four strokes to assume the lead. The first hole, with its wide fairway and a view toward the Beverly Hilton, had been one of his favored spots all through the tournament, ever since he started his Open with a putt of nearly 33 feet for eagle. He did not achieve the same feat on Sunday, but his birdie was enough to take lone control of first place after a McIlroy birdie had allowed him to snatch briefly a share of the lead.Clark’s time on top ended swiftly, when he bogeyed the second hole for the second time this week. Fowler also slipped with a bogey, the beginning of a flameout for a player who on Thursday shot a 62, a single-round record for an Open.Clark made a birdie on the fourth hole, the first of five par-3 tests on the course along Wilshire Boulevard, to take him to 11 under. McIlroy was at 10 under, and Fowler at 9. Scheffler, steady but not spectacular, had not changed his score in either direction.The sixth hole had unnerved players for days, a par-4 concoction with a blind tee shot and demanding terrain. Clark had managed a birdie there on Thursday, before making par on Friday and Saturday.On Sunday afternoon, seeking a slightly larger gap between himself and everyone else, Clark stood at the tee and sent his shot soaring 266 yards. It came to rest in grass that was thick but, by the standards of some other locales on the course, not prohibitive. He cocked his head to the left, peered toward the pin about 54 feet away, looked down and swung. The ball crashed onto the green, rolling past the cup but setting up a short putt for birdie and a two-stroke lead.It took Clark two attempts to get his ball out of a tangle of foliage on No. 8.Etienne Laurent/EPA, via ShutterstockIt was on the eighth hole where Clark’s advantage could have fully unraveled, when his second shot landed in green-vicinity foliage that looked more receptive to a scythe than a club. Clark’s first escape attempt went all of eight inches, according to tournament officials — a sum that seemed about eight inches too high. He escaped by lifting a shot over the green into the right rough and ultimately saved bogey, his lead shaved to a stroke.Clark and McIlroy both played the front nine to 34, one under. For both, though, the back nine had typically been more bruising. Their positions on the leaderboard were static until the 14th hole, when McIlroy’s wedge shot sent his ball thumping into the side of a bunker. Granted free relief, he dropped into the fescue near the hole but could do no better than departing the green with a bogey.Clark’s experience was far more comfortable, his second shot leaving him less than two dozen feet from the par-5 hole’s pin, setting up an eagle opportunity. Clark’s putt went just to the right of the cup, but a subsequent birdie attempt dropped, building his margin to three strokes.It was brief. Clark missed a par chance on the 15th hole when his putt did not sufficiently break, and then his tee shot on No. 16 wound up in a bunker. Despite dazzling wedge play with his third shot, a short putt soon enough lipped out for Clark’s second consecutive bogey.Down by a stroke, McIlroy, who struggled on the greens for much of the day, barely missed a birdie putt on the 17th hole, his familiar anguish reappearing.“I’m right there,” he would say in a television interview afterward. “It’s such fine margins at this level, and I just got to keep putting myself in these positions and, you know, sooner or later it’s going to happen for me.”Finishing at nine under, McIlroy recorded a par on the final hole, where Clark had made par or birdie during each of the first three rounds. If Clark could stick to that history, the galleries knew, he would be a major champion — just as he concluded last month he was all but ready to be.Par, to stay at 10 under, to finish at 10 under. His eyes glistened.“Your mom was with you,” Fowler soon told him. “She’d be very proud.”He had played big.Clark said his mother, who died 10 years ago, always told him to “play big.”Sean M. Haffey/Getty Images More

    • 138 Shares189 Views

      in Golf

      At the U.S. Open, Wyndham Clark Is Confident, and It Shows

      by

      Bold play in honor of his mother, who died nearly 10 years ago, had Clark flirting with the top of the leaderboard for part of his second round on Friday.When Wyndham Clark was a kid, his mother, Lise, would tuck short written notes in his knapsack, little missives meant to lift his spirits or motivate him during the day. Clark tried to hide the notes from classmates because they became a source of teasing, especially when he was younger.During interviews in the 10 years since Lise Clark died of breast cancer at 55, Clark has often said, “I’d give anything to have those notes now.”But Clark, among the leaders after the second round of this week’s U.S. Open, has no trouble recalling the most lasting of his mother’s messages — at least as it relates to his professional golf career.“When my mom was sick,” Clark, 29, said on Friday, “I was in college and she told me: ‘Hey, play big. Play for something bigger than yourself. You have a platform to either witness, or help, or be a role model for so many people.’“And I’ve taken that to heart. When I’m out there playing, I want to do that for her.”Clark conjured the memory in the wake of two consecutive stellar rounds at the national golf championship at Los Angeles Country Club. After shooting a sparkling 64 in Thursday’s first round, Clark followed it up with a three-under-par 67, which had his name atop the U.S. Open leaderboards for several hours before the Friday afternoon wave of golfers teed off.Clark’s distinguished play was not a fluke. He has steadily been climbing the world golf rankings with six top-10 finishes on the PGA Tour during the 2022-23 season. Last month, he earned his first tour victory at the Wells Fargo Championship in Charlotte, N.C., a milestone that Clark, now ranked 32nd in the world, said significantly bolstered his belief in himself.“It was big, to me, it felt like a major championship,” he said on Friday. “I just feel like I can compete with the best players in the world, and I think of myself as one of them.”Several years ago, Clark did not have the same confidence. In the months after the death of his mother, who had introduced him to golf as a toddler, Clark struggled on and off the course.When he competed poorly, Clark would storm off the golf course and, he said, “just drive away as fast as I could, I didn’t even know where I was going.”“The pressure of golf and then not having my mom there and someone to call was really tough,” he said after his Wells Fargo victory last month.He missed cut after cut and withdrew from Oklahoma State University before eventually settling at the University of Oregon. Slowly, he said, he found his equilibrium. He debuted on the PGA Tour in 2017, and while the acclimation to the vicissitudes of a pro golfer’s life took time, by last season his play was consistent enough to earn more than $1.5 million in prize money.“I was building my confidence bit by bit, which is, of course, so vital in this game — or any profession,” Clark said.His self-assurance was on display as he played the L.A. Country Club’s devilish par-5 14th hole on Friday. Clark’s second shot settled in deep, gnarly rough about 30 yards short of the green. His third required a gutsy flop shot from a sketchy lie that had to land with spin and precision on a blazing fast, sloping green.He kept the shot on the green and then drained the 13-foot putt for a spectacular birdie. After his round, Clark, with a wide smile, conceded that his third shot was “very risky.”He estimated that in a normal PGA Tour event, he would successfully execute the shot 70 percent of the time. Friday’s round, though, was conducted under the withering pressure of a U.S. Open, so the chance of averting a bogey, Clark said, “was way less because you have the nerves.”But Clark insisted he never wavered about what shot he had to try.He would play big.“When I’m out there playing, I want to do that for her,” Clark said of his mother. “I want to show everyone the person I am and how much joy I have out there playing.“I was walking the fairway yesterday and just kind of smiling because I was playing well. And I go, ‘Man, I wish you could be here, Mom, because it’s a dream come true to be doing this at the highest level.’”He added: “But I know she’s proud of me. I am who I am today because of her. I mean, I’m getting a little choked up. I miss her, and everything I do out here is a lot for her.” More