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Wyndham Clark got the U.S. team off to a good start on Thursday (Michael Reaves/Getty Images)
MEDINAH, Ill. — A foolproof method of winning American hearts and turning haters into fans? Win points in U.S. international team competition.
Wyndham Clark has spent the better part of two years pushing back on the notion that he is some kind of a bad guy. A couple of behavioral incidents in 2025 led to that reputation — a good deal of it deserved. He’s repeatedly apologized and attempted to move on.
Fans, however, aren’t always so forgiving. Even a strong run of success that brought Clark back to the forefront of the game this year couldn’t turn the tide. He still suffered from the fallout of his actions in 2025, enduring a good bit of unwarranted abuse on his way to winning his second career U.S. open at Shinnecock in June.
When he added the BMW Championship last month in addition to his earlier victory at the CJ Cup Byron Nelson, he had a player-of-the-year type season that perhaps only Scottie Scheffler can top.
Winning over the fans, however, has remained elusive.
“I think if it happened throughout my career, it would maybe be a bummer because even though I’m maybe — the media has made me out to be the villain, if you will. … I don’t feel like I’m that person,” Clark said this week at Medinah. “Eventually it would be nice if people were rooting for me and someone else was the underdog, if you will.”
Queue the Presidents Cup, where nationalism can turn any villain into a hero if he’s on your side.
Also in today’s DD …
Presidents Cup Day 2 foursomes pairings feature a tasty rematch from 2024
Clark, 32, tried his best to win over the home crowd during the opening session of the 16th Presidents Cup at Medinah Country Club on Thursday, teaming with Collin Morikawa to post a 3-and-2 victory over the International tandem of Ryan Fox and Adam Scott. Clark birdied the first hole to give the Americans a lead they never relinquished and added another at the fourth and eighth holes.
“We started off great — 3-up through 4 — and then we missed some putts,” Clark said. “Collin played really awesome kind of in the middle stretch and just didn’t have some putts fall. I kind of lost my groove a little bit and then finished strong. Yeah, it was a great day.”
Their victory loomed important as the first-day four-ball competition ended 3-2 for the Americans, including a 1-up victory for Scheffler and Sam Burns over Min Woo Lee and Sungjae Im and a realtively easy 4-and-3 win for veteran Justin Thomas and rookie Jackson Koivun.
The duo of Scheffler and Burns won their first match in five partnerships in international competitions dating to the 2022 Presidents Cup, having previously gone 0-3-1 together. It came with some help from their International opponents, who both made sloppy bogeys on the 17th hole to fall one down after earlier missing close chances to go 2-up. It was the only match out of the five that went to the 18th hole.
In the International team’s win column, the Japanese pair of Hideki Matsuyama and Ryo Hisatsune defeated Cam Young and Xander Schauffele, 3 and 1, while the anchor pairing of South Koreans Tom Kim and Si Woo Kim defeated Chris Gotterup and Patrick Cantlay, 3 and 2.
Clark’s previous team experience was not much to get excited about. He went 1-1-1 at the 2023 Ryder Cup where the Americans lost to Europe in Rome. In that lone match victory, he was a virtual bystander during the much-discussed “hat-gate” showdown with Patrick Cantlay carrying most of the load in a contentious 1-up win over Rory McIlroy and Matt Fitzpatrick. He lost his singles match to Robert MacIntyre the next day as part of a 16-11 European trouncing.
Two years ago in the Presidents Cup at Royal Montreal, Clark went 1-2-1, winning and losing a four-ball match with Keegan Bradley and losing at foursomes with Tony Finau before a singles tie.
Last year during the depths of his slump, Clark didn’t qualify for the U.S. Ryder Cup team and didn’t get much consideration for a captain’s pick as the U.S. was defeated 15-13 at Bethpage.
“I was obviously pissed I didn’t make the team,” Clark said of last year’s home Ryder Cup. “I didn’t watch the first couple days because I was a little sour about it — not because I didn’t get the pick, it was just more that I had such a bad year.
“Then as the guys were making a comeback on Sunday, I watched. Of course I’m friends with all these guys, and I was rooting for them hard. It’s always a motivation to make the teams. I was really happy I made this team, and I’m hoping this is one of many.”
Missing last year’s Ryder Cup was all part of a forgettable year for Clark that saw him involved in two high-profile anger management issues at both the PGA Championship and the U.S. Open. The latter occurred after missing the cut at Oakmont, where he damaged his locker in the historic clubhouse and one of the Oakmont members leaked photos of it. He later received a letter from the club stating that he was banned from the premises. Clark made restitution for the damage he caused and has repeatedly apologized for his behavior.
It has taken him some time to rehabilitate his image in the eye of the golf world, something even a torrid summer with three victories and a major couldn’t fix. He’s moved back to fifth in the Official World Golf Ranking after falling as low as 78th ahead of the Masters in April.
But team competition has a way of getting people on your side. And Clark hopes to take full advantage of the opportunity to win back some fans.
“There’s never more fun in golf than doing what we do this week and at the Ryder Cup because it’s not something that’s really in golf,” Clark said. “We all have a lot of fun. Normally we’re trying to beat each other’s heads in, and now we’re good buddies trying to root each other on and for one goal, to win the cup.”
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Day 2 picks up the pace with foursomes on tap
Today’s second session of the Presidents Cup will send out five foursomes matches starting at 2:05 p.m. ET. Golf Channel will provide full coverage of the session.
All eyes may be on the anchor match, as the U.S. will reprise the long-standing partnership of Xander Schauffele and Patrick Cantlay against the familiar International team of Si Woo Kim and Tom Kim.
Schauffele and Cantlay hold an 8-7 record together across international team play, but they have proven particularly formidible in foursomes with a 6-3 record in the alternate-shot format. That includes a memorable showdown against the Kims in the 2024 Presidents Cup at Royal Montreal, in which Si Woo Kim raced around the 16th green in the Steph Curry “night-night” celebration after squaring the match with an unlikely hole-out from a steep rough-shrouded wall. Undeterred, Schauffele and Cantlay won the 18th hole and took the match 1-up.
U.S. rookie Jacob Bridgeman will get his first taste of action with Russell Henley in the session’s second match, facing off against International veterans Hideki Matsuyama and Sungjae Im.
The rest of the U.S. pairings look pretty familiar. Scheffler and Burns will lead off again against the Canadian duo of Corey Conners and Nick Taylor. Taylor sat out the opening four-balls.
Collin Morikawa and Wyndham Clark will be trotted out again in the third match to try to collect another win, this time against Australian Min Woo Lee and New Zealand’s Ryan Fox.
With American rookie Jackson Koivun sitting out, Justin Thomas will reprise his 2025 Ryder Cup partnership with Cameron Young. This will be their first time together in alternate shot, as they went 1-1 in four-balls together at Bethpage Black. They will face Adam Scott and Christiaan Bezuidenhuit, marking the South African’s first session this year after going 3-1-1 in two prior Presidents Cups.
3-2 keeps it interesting. Could’ve been 2-3 if Min Woo made some putts. Need the Internationals to go 4-1 today to make the weekend mustwatch!