At the US Open, Wyndham Clark is fighting 2 very different battles
SOUTHAMPTON, NY – Wyndham Clark knows a joke. You’ve heard them and maybe even read them. He knows one of the lowest moments of his life came at this tournament last year, when he damaged the keys at Oakmont Country Club.
He faced the consequences and the criticism and said every apology. All the while his performance was a shadow of what it was, when he won the US Open at the Los Angeles Country Club three years ago.
But now that his game has been resurrected, so have his worst moments.
“I was at the top of my game when I won the US Open and I had a great year,” Clark said Friday at Shinnecock Hills, fresh off a one-under 69 to take the US Open lead into the weekend. “Then the next thing you know, I apologize for breaking the locker next year.”
Things change quickly; Clark’s game between them. He won the Wells Fargo Championship in May 2023 and the US Open a month later. He added another win at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am in February 2024, but that ended a two-year winless slump.
He failed to finish in the top three in any event in 2025 and missed the deadline for the tournament, which led to a robbery in Pennsylvania. The club stopped him in this place, and managed him againa statement conditional on Clark fulfilling certain conditions, including paying damages, donating to charity, and completing anger management sessions. A few months later, he was left off the Ryder Cup team.
This year was not going much better; missed the cut at the PGA Championship but won his debut at the CJ Cup Byron Nelson. He took third in the difficult Memorial event two weeks later. And last week he tied for 11th place in Canada.
On Friday, he said the ebbs and flows were like climbing Everest.
“Sometimes you have to go down to get back up,” she said. “I think that’s kind of what happens on the golf course and off the golf course. Right now I’m trending back, which is good.”
Clark has long credited mental game coach Julie Elion for any success he has had. He is a passionate player by nature; you can see it. Some guys have it – like Clark and Scottie Scheffler and Jordan Spieth and Tyrrell Hatton. But the important thing is not to let it win. In his next start after the Oakmont incident, Clark said he had many positives and negatives in his career and made a mistake that he deeply regretted.
“I got a lot of grief from last year, I have to,” said Friday. “The sad thing is that I’m not who I am, what happened last year. I hope to bring back the fans I had or new fans because it was a very bad experience. You know, I feel like I can show people that I’m happy and free, I’m aggressive, I’m competitive, I love the game, I respect the game, and I just had a bad moment.”
As Clark tries to reshape that narrative, his game has arrived. He’s back to 34th in the World Ranking, and thanks coach Pat Coyner for the strides they’ve made together. Clark had not had a skating coach for years until he met Coyner in Cherry Hills, Colorado. They started working together late last year.
“I was hitting balls the other day and I just asked him, ‘Hey, what do you think?'” Clark said. He says, ‘Honestly, I’m looking at a few things how you’re changing from ’23 and ’22, and you’re too tall, you’re like a cup, your wrist isn’t soft, X, Y and Z.’ He says, ‘If we could just take it back to ’23 at the beginning of Jan. 1, like some of those moves, and we continue to get better as the year goes on,’ and he’s done that.”
Clark has more control over his irons (ranked 14th in Strokes Gained: Approach) and is hitting his driver more accurately.
He said: “If I hit it on the road, I feel like I’m dead.”
He was there this week. He made one bogey and shot a six-under 64 in the first round, which he finished with two holes to spare on Friday morning. He had another neat second round – three birdies, two bogeys, good for a 69. He’s 12th in the field at SG: Approach and has made a few key putts so far, including a soft 33-footer for birdie on the 18th on Friday.
Clark is fighting two battles at Shinnecock: the field and his public opinion. Winning a golf tournament is hard enough. But changing the story? That takes effort and time. Maybe this weekend will bring some answers.
“I hope I can bring those people back,” he said. “I definitely feel like I’m in a better place. I hope it’s a great weekend and a great year, maybe I’ll win all those fans over.”
