Wyndham Clark conquers the US Open

Two Tuesdays ago, as the golfing world erupted into chaos and rage, Wyndham Clark didn’t rush to write a shocked and awe-inspiring Twitter post. He was not furious during a meeting with the commissioner of the PGA Tour over the surprise pact with Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund. He didn’t moralize or criticize and basically did nothing but play golf.

His chosen course that Tuesday was the Los Angeles Country Club, which would host the US Open, his first major tournament, nine days later. One member of the club was Clark’s caddy, a friend-turned-teacher who knew some of the secrets of a North Course only a handful of the game’s biggest stars had ever seen: how a putt can break here, how the speed there can vary how tight the fairways can become.

The payoff came on Sunday night, when 29-year-old Clark defeated Rory McIlroy by one stroke at the US Open to enter the holy brotherhood of major championship winners. Until Sunday, Clark’s best finish in a major was tied for 75th in a PGA Championship. His two previous Open appearances were even worse, ending with missed cuts.

But his mother, his “ever-present supporter” who died nearly a decade ago, always issued an ambitious admonition: “Play big.”

This tour season he has emerged as a dangerous foe, suggesting that despite his great track record, he could soon be a force on the game’s biggest stages. With his irons tuned a few degrees and his swing checked and fine-tuned not by a platoon of advisors but only by Clark and his caddy, he arrived in Los Angeles having won the Wells Fargo Championship and four other top-10s since early February. places achieved. .

That Wells Fargo win, in May at Quail Hollow in Charlotte, NC, had come up against an ominous list of rivals whose last names—McIlroy and Spieth, Scott and Day—were synonymous with golfing brilliance even before Clark graduated from college.

The victory over Quail Hollow, a former and future PGA Championship site, encouraged Clark. He had, he reasoned, beat 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 consider myself one of them.”

Now he sure is.

By the time Clark waited in the first tee box on Sunday afternoon with Rickie Fowler, the other half of the Open finals and an almost-but-not-quite-club of the golf prince, he’d been sticking with it all week. his mother’s creed. 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 lap, with Fowler and Clark both 10 under. McIlroy, a four-time major winner caught up in a nine-year drought, was followed by a shot at dawn on Sunday. Scottie Scheffler, the world’s top ranked player, was three back from Clark and Fowler.

Clark needed just four strokes to take the lead. The first hole, with its wide fairway and view of the Beverly Hilton, had been one of his favorite spots throughout the tournament, ever since he started his Open with a 10-yard putt for eagle. He didn’t perform the same way on Sunday, but his birdie was enough to take sole control of first after a McIlroy birdie briefly allowed him to take part of the lead.

Clark’s time at the top came to a quick end when he bogeyed on the second hole for the second time this week. Fowler also slipped with a bogey, the start of a blowout for a player who shot a 62 on Thursday, 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 10 under and Fowler was 9. Scheffler, steady but unspectacular, hadn’t changed his scoring in either direction.

The sixth hole had left players jittery for days, a par-4 brew with a blind tee shot and demanding terrain. Clark had birdie there on Thursday, before making par on Friday and Saturday.

On Sunday afternoon, looking for a slightly bigger gap between him and everyone else, Clark stood on the tee and fired his shot 266 yards high. It came to rest in grass that was thick but, by the standards of some other places on the course, not prohibitively expensive. Tilting his head to the left, he peered at the pin about 50 feet away, looked down and waved. The ball crashed onto the green, rolled past the cup but short putt for a birdie and a two-stroke lead.

It was on the eighth hole where Clark’s advantage could have fully unraveled, when his second shot landed in some nearby green foliage that seemed more receptive to a scythe than a club. Clark’s first breakaway attempt went as much as eight inches, according to tournament officials—an amount that seemed about eight inches too high. He escaped by lifting a shot over the green into the right rough and finally made a bogey save, shaving his lead to a stroke.

Clark and McIlroy both played the first nine to 34, one under. But for both, the back nine had typically been more bruises. Their positions on the scoreboard were static until the 14th hole, when McIlroy’s wedge shot smashed his ball into the side of a bunker. He got free help and fell into the fescue near the hole, but he couldn’t do better than leave the green with a bogey.

Clark’s experience was much more comfortable, his second shot leaving him less than six yards from the pin of the par-5 hole, creating an eagle’s chance. Clark’s putt went just to the right of the cup, but another attempt at a birdie failed, increasing his margin to three strokes.

It was short. Clark missed a par opportunity on the 15th hole when his putt failed to break enough, and then his No. 16 tee shot landed in a bunker. Despite the dazzling wedge play with his third shot, a short putt fizzled out fast enough for Clark’s second consecutive bogey.

McIlroy, who struggled on the green most of the day, missed a birdie putt on the 17th hole by one stroke.

McIlroy finished nine under and recorded a par on the final hole, where Clark had made par or birdie during each of the first three rounds. If Clark could live up to that history, the galleries knew, he’d be a major champion – just as he concluded last month that he was almost ready.

Par, to stay on 10 under, to finish on 10 under. His eyes glittered.

He had played great.