Wyndham reaps rewards in 'surreal' year
Clark rises from rank-and-file to man in full; Rory McIlroy's board bid rejected
Wyndham Clark came a long way in one year (Chris Keane/USGA)
A year of Wynd-fall success for Clark
CHARLOTTE, N.C. – A year ago today, Wyndham Clark was just another one of the many talented golfers on the PGA Tour languishing in relative anonymity. If any non-hard core golf fan knew his name at all, it’s only because he’s shares it with a hotel chain.
Clark was midway through his fifth full season on the PGA Tour, qualifying for the FedEx Cup playoffs and retaining his card every year but never finishing better than 64th in the standings the first four years. He struggled to gain any notable traction and the frustration of unfulfilled potential weighed on him. He’d made 133 career PGA Tour starts to that point without a victory.
“Well, I learned a lot of ways of how to not win,” Clark said. “There was a lot of hard work and sweat and tears and anger and frustration in those four or five years.”
Yet when Clark showed up at Quail Hollow a year ago, there was a glimmer of hope that all the work and sweat and frustration was finally leading him somewhere meaningful. He was on a streak of 15 consecutive starts making the cut, including five top-10 finishes that had him lurking just outside the all-important top 30 in the tour’s points system. The weekend before, he drained a 12-foot putt on his last hole Friday to make the cut on the number in Mexico and he converted that into a top-25 finish.
“I felt like I gained a lot of confidence going into Quail Hollow but yet was still frustrated that I hadn't won,” he said.
That all changed in one week in Charlotte at the Wells Fargo Championship. On Saturday, Clark fired an 8-under 63 – the low round of the week at Quail Hollow – to take the 54-hole lead. It was the second time he’d slept on a PGA Tour lead heading to the final. The first was as a rookie in 2019 at the Honda Classic, where he eventually finished T7.
“I can list them off for you because I remember all the ones that I didn’t win,” Clark said.
Playing with Xander Schauffele, Clark didn’t flinch this time, learning from his past failures to earn a breakthrough victory that changed everything.
“I used to get really quick and fast in pressure situations, my thinking would get fast and it would lead to poor decisions and some poor golf swings,” he said. “So I just think the more experience I had in those moments, the more comfortable I got. I think it kind of led to this event last year.
“Jeez, I had maybe even like a 63-hole lead going into the Dominican last year right before this event and didn't have a great back nine and didn't win. Leading up to that I was in contention in Tampa, I was in contention (in Phoenix). I was in contention at, gosh, somewhere else, and I just was learning what not to do. Then that taught me what to do and that was to slow down, calm my thinking. So winning here is really my big breakthrough in kind of opened up the floodgates if you will.”
Clark went from an unremarkable No. 163 in the world to start 2023 to now No. 3. He won the U.S. Open six weeks after Charlotte, holding off four-time major champion Rory McIlroy. He qualified for the Ryder Cup. He won the rain-shortened signature event at Pebble Beach in February, shooting a course-record 60 on Saturday.
“I don't think I would imagine I’d be here in front of you guys (as U.S. Open champion) a year later, but I do know I was trending towards some good golf,” he said. “And then to have it happen at Quail was amazing and then obviously everything else unfolded.
“I mean, looking back and thinking of where I was a year ago today, I was just showing up to Quail Hollow as not a PGA Tour winner and outside the top 50 in the world and now I’m here as a top-five player in the world and won three times including a major. So it’s been a crazy year and honestly pretty surreal.”
Six weeks after maiden win, Clark beat Rory McIlroy at LACC U.S. Open (Kathryn Riley/USGA)
Those results don’t really tell the full measure of the competitor Clark has fully evolved into. He’s now one of the players who you expect to contend every week and whose name lurks ominously on a leaderboard. It was Clark who best pushed world No. 1 Scottie Scheffler during his recent torrid run, finishing runner-up to him at Bay Hills and the Players Championship – his potential playoff-forcing putt on the last hole disappearing halfway into the cup before horseshoeing out what would have been his third straight birdie in the closing stretch at TPC Sawgrass.
Could Scheffler, 27, and Clark, 30, become the rivalry golf fans look to see at the top of the game?
“I mean, what Scottie is doing is unbelievable. It's Tiger-esque,” Clark said. “He’s the best player in the world right now – there’s no doubt about it. But what’s great about it is he’s challenged I think all of us including myself to improve our games and to push our games to new levels. Which I think Tiger did to everyone else.
“I’m hoping I can continue to challenge him and by the end of this year or next year or two years, maybe there really is kind of a rival rivalry between us. I mean, there definitely isn’t anything negative between us because we do have a great friendship, but it’s more of an inside-the-ropes rivalry, which is kind of fun.”
To step up that last notch to Scheffler’s No. 1 level, Clark knows there are areas he still needs to improve in. “I think I could putt consistently better,” he said. “And then my focus, I think in tournaments, needs to be better. I look at Hilton Head a few weeks ago, I lost that tournament on Thursday. Obviously, everyone sees what happens on Sunday, but I had a bunch of easy shots I didn’t get up and down, missed a handful of putts. And that round easily could have been 3- or 4-under, which is four or five shots and now we’re (he and Scheffler) in a playoff or I win by one. So, I just got to get a little better on the focus.”
Considering how far Clark came in one year, don’t be surprised by how high he might go in the next 12 months.
Rory’s “Just do it” Nike cap echoes his message for the PGA Tour/PIF negotiations. (Scott Michaux)
Rory rebuffed for board seat; Tiger a lone wolf
Rory McIlroy is not headed back to the PGA Tour Policy Board, and Tiger Woods is reportedly the only player involved on the team trying to negotiate an agreement with the Public Investment Fund.
After expressing interest in returning to the seat he vacated in November — at the behest of current player director Webb Simpson — McIlroy said Wednesday that it won’t work due to some opposition from current board members and complications due to governance.
He didn’t name anyone, but Golf Digest reported that Tiger Woods, Patrick Cantlay and Jordan Spieth were three of the board members who resisted McIlroy’s return. Adam Scott and Peter Malnati are the only other player dmembers of the board along with Simpson.
McIlroy has been in favor of making a deal with the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia — which funds LIV Golf. Any hard-liners opposed to compromising the PGA Tour’s position resisted adding McIlroy’s powerful voice back onto the board.
“It got pretty complicated and pretty messy and I think with the way it happened, I think it opened up some old wounds and scar tissue from things that have happened before,’’ McIlroy said Wednesday at the Wells Fargo Championship. “I think there was a subset of people on the board that were maybe uncomfortable with me coming back on for some reason.
“I think that the best course of action is if there’s some people on there that aren’t comfortable with me coming back on, then I think Webb just stays on and sees out his term, and I think he’s gotten to a place where he’s comfortable with doing that and I just sort of keep doing what I’m doing.
“So yeah, I put my hand up to help and it was … I wouldn’t say it was rejected, it was a complicated process to get through to put me back on there. So that’s all fine, no hard feelings and we’ll all move on.’’
It’s no secret that board member Cantlay and McIlroy do not share some of the same beliefs and have had their differences. Woods has typically toed the company line, saying the board is working on a deal, but it is believed he has no interest in LIV Golf and is reluctant to move forward with a compromise agreement.
“I think there was a subset of people on the board that were maybe uncomfortable with me coming back on for some reason.” — Rory McIlroy
After Strategic Sports Group became a private equity partner with PGA Tour Enterprises at the end of January, Spieth said it was no longer necessary to get investment from the PIF.
Jay Monahan, the PGA Tour commissioner, said in a statement that the board drama “is in no way a commentary on Rory’s important perspective and influence” and noted that it was a matter of adhering to the governance process of joining the board.
“Webb remaining in his position as a member of the policy board and PGA Tour Enterprises board through the end of his term provides the continuity needed at this vital time," Monahan said.
Tiger Woods will be only player on “transaction committee.” (David Paul Morris/ANGC)
Woods, who was appointed as a sixth player-director to the PGA Tour board in August with no term limit, will reportedly be part of the “transaction subcommittee” on the board of PGA Tour Enterprises that will handle day-to-day negotiations with PIF. Also on the subcommittee are Monahan, board chairman Joe Gorder, John W. Henry of Fenway Sports Group and Joe Ogilvie, a former tour player appointed as a director liaison in March.
McIlroy has said on several occasions that he believes a deal with the PIF — which backs LIV Golf — is necessary and that he’s frustrated by the lack of movement.
It’s been nearly a year since the controversial “framework agreement’’ between the PGA Tour, DP World Tour and PIF was announced. The tour has since made a deal with SSG for up to $3 billion in investment, with a complicated plan to give players equity shares.
But nothing has happened with the PIF as LIV continues to plan for the future with several prominent players.
Simpson said Wednesday that he would remain for the duration of his three-year term but simply wanted more input from McIlroy. They’ve spoken several times and Simpson believed there was a way to get him back on the board — even if that won’t happen now.
“I think the sentiment was that Rory McIlroy being the global superstar he is and the strong voice in the game of golf, it’ll be great to get him more involved,’’ Simpson said. “All he has said to me is I just want to help if you guys want me to help. He has an important voice. I think he’s already made a positive impact this week.’’
McIlory said he is glad Simpson is remaining. “He has a really balanced voice in all this,’’ he said.
Asked what some of the holdups to a deal might be, McIlroy gave several examples.
“It could be if we go to a more global schedule, do the American players that are used to playing all their golf in America want to travel outside of the States 12 times a year to play tournament golf? That’s a consideration,” he said.
“If we all sort of come back together, I think from the LIV contingent there’s only seven players over there who have status, still have status or eligibility here. But would it be palatable to the rest of the membership if they come back — after seeing their (LIV) contract out and they’ve financially got ahead by potentially hundreds of millions over the people who stayed. That’s a consideration.
“If you’re just thinking about the big picture and what’s good for the game of golf and what’s good for the Tom Kims of the world in 10 or 15 years’ time and they’re still playing professional golf, you want to set it up in a way where those younger guys have all the same opportunities if not more opportunities than we’ve had.
“So it’s not really about the here and now. It’s a little bit, but it’s also about how does this thing look 10, 15, 20 years down the line.’’