NAPA, Calif. — Wyndham Clark said he loves wine and all the delicious food that this region of Northern California is famous for, and he also fancies Silverado Resort’s North Course, home of this week’s Procore Championship. But during his pre-tournament press conference ahead of this week’s tournament, Clark made it clear he’s competing in the first event of the FedEx Cup Fall for one specific reason.
“I think the last time I screwed up,” he said of his debut in international team competition last fall in Rome. “I took too much time off and wasn’t quite prepared for the Ryder Cup, and this year I wanted to make sure I don’t do that. There’s no preparation better than playing against the best players. I think this is the best prep you can have.”
Clark elaborated on the mistake he and several of his teammates made. Last year, without the Olympics on the schedule, the Tour Championship ended Aug. 27, more than a month before the Ryder Cup began on Sept. 29. Clark elected to skip the Tour’s Napa stop last year.
“Last year it was realistically four weeks (off),” said Clark. “And then by the time you pegged it up to play, it was the fifth week, so it’s five weeks. I mean, I would never prepare for a big event where I had five weeks off between one tournament to the next.”
Clark said he turned up rusty to Marco Simone and didn’t feel sharp when he played his first match on Friday afternoon, a Four-Ball match with partner Max Homa against Robert MacIntyre and Justin Rose of Team Europe.
“Through four holes I said (to Homa), ‘Man, I’m sorry,’” Clark said, “because I kind of was not playing good the first four holes. I said, ‘I’m sorry, I’m not tournament sharp right now, I’ll get into it.’ Then eventually I started getting more comfortable.”
The Euros rallied to win the last two holes to tie that match. Clark claimed he wasn’t the only one with rust on their game.
“I felt like a lot of us weren’t prepared,” he said. “If it’s something that I do myself or hopefully Team USA kind of makes it mandatory that everyone does it, I think we should all play before. I know we have such a grueling schedule and we all just played the Tour Championship, but if we can just do – it’s just one more week to play and to keep us sharp so that we can win, I think it’s worth it.”
Clark, winner of the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am in February and No. 6 in the world, also learned another lesson. Last year, he tinkered with his set of clubs, which he hadn’t used in competition before.
“That was really stupid of me,” he said. “Same irons and everything but I adjusted some lie angles and lofts, and I won’t be doing that again this year.”
Clark also told one humorous story of how a fan managed to get under his skin during his first match in the Ryder Cup.
“While I’m reading a putt, a guy goes, ‘Wyndham, you haven’t made had a putt since the U.S. Open.’ At the time I hadn’t played good golf leading up into it, then played good at the Tour Championship. I was kind of pissed off,” Clark recalled. “And then I made that putt and I kind of like stared down in the crowd or something. And Max was like, ‘What are you doing?’ I was like, ‘Well, that guy said I haven’t made a putt since the U.S. Open.’ He goes, ‘Well, you just made one there.’
“Then I make one on the next hole and I turn and kiss the putter at the guy and Max is just laughing. We laughed about it for like two holes. What’s great is we were in such a good mindset that we just kept making birdies and kept the momentum going. It was a funny thing there. There were some more words said, I can’t repeat what was said, but it was just a very funny moment so it’s something we’ll both remember forever.”
“When they stopped playing here, it was kind of a stab to the heart for me.”
CASTLE ROCK, Colo. – Wyndham Clark turned off Interstate 25 and onto Bellevue Road to work out with his trainer the other day, passing the land that used to be Mountain View Range, where he hit his first golf shots at age 3.
“It’s five skyrises. It’s kind of crazy to see that,” he said.
Some 27 years ago, his father, Randall, was away on business and so his mother, Lise, a non-golfer, strapped Clark and his siblings in the car and drove them to Mountain View with the sole purpose of getting the kids out of the house.
“She knew nothing about golf,” Clark told Golf Magazine. “She said, ‘My son wants to hit some golf balls,’ and got me a bucket. Had no clubs. They got me some. I hit one bucket and said, ‘Mom, can I hit another one?’ And it turned into, like, an hour and a half, two hours where I just sat there. It was a great reprieve for my mom. And, for me, that’s kind of when I fell in love with the game.”
Wyndham’s winding road returns to the Mile High City this week for the BMW Championship at Castle Pines Golf Club, the 30-year-old’s first start in his home state as a professional. The last time he played a tournament here? At the 2017 Pac-12 Championship in Boulder. He returns as the 2023 U.S. Open champion, a member of last year’s U.S. Ryder Cup team, represented the U.S. in the Paris Olympics, and ranked fifth in the world.
“You dream about those things, but you never really thought it could be this great,” he said. “I kind of exceeded my expectations in my own career, which is pretty amazing.”
Clark blossomed from those first buckets at Mountain View to learning the game at Family Sports Center, where he and his dad would hit balls for four and five hours at a time.
“Then I’d go do short game and play those nine holes. It’s amazing to see where I started at a kind of local muni and then go into the college ranks and being here, it’s pretty awesome,” he said.
Wyndham Clark of Team United States prepares to tee off on the 16th hole during the first round of men’s stroke play during the Paris 2024 Olympic Summer Games at Le Golf National. (Michael Madrid-USA TODAY Sports)
Growing up in Greenwood Village, the pride of Valor Christian High School skipped over a pretty significant development in his progression into one of the biggest stars in the game. When their son was 11, Clark’s parents scraped together the money to pay for a membership at Cherry Hills.
“To move to a country club where I could hit unlimited golf balls, that was my candy store,” he said. “I no longer had to put money in a ball machine. I would say, ‘Dad, we have free balls!’ He would sigh and say, ‘Yeah, isn’t that great?'”
Cherry Hills is one of golf’s great cathedrals, where Arnold Palmer drove the first green and made birdie en route to shooting 65 and erasing a six-shot deficit to win the 1960 U.S. Open. Clark, who often rode his bicycle to the course with his bag on his back, recalls being 15 when he first drove the par-4, 340-yard downhill opener, although he concedes it might have landed short and bounced to the fringe. Now, when he goes back he hits a soft, cut 3-wood to reach the green.
“Without Cherry Hills, I don’t know if I’d be here,” Clark said. “It is surreal that I spent my childhood walking past that display in the clubhouse about 1960, hoping that I could win the U.S. Open one day, and that I eventually did it.”
Along the way, he gained additional inspiration by attending The International, the first PGA Tour tournament he ever attended, when he was seven or eight years old. Clark recalls sitting at the ninth green and watching the likes of David Duval, Retief Goosen and Ernie Els marching down the fairway.
“That’s when I knew I wanted to do what they did,” he said. “Just visualizing and imagining myself being here one day, and it’s kind of crazy, fast forward 20-some years and I’m here.”
Before notching three Tour titles, he won the 2010 Colorado State Amateur, becoming the tournament’s youngest winner in nearly 40 years, and two high school championships, including shooting 64-64 in his senior year to win by eight. Sadly, the International closed up shop in 2006 and the BMW Championship last visited the Rocky Mountains in 2014 at Cherry Hills. Clark, a college student at the time at Oklahoma State, attended as a fan and watched his buddy, former Cowboy Morgan Hoffmann shoot 62-63 on the weekend. But it has been a decade since the Tour last played in Denver.
“When they stopped playing here, it was kind of a stab to the heart for me because it was so fun coming out and watching it,” he said of the International’s demise at the dawn of the FedEx Cup era. “So for me this is so special.”
No one had to twist Clark’s arm to shoot a commercial to promote the Tour’s return to his hometown alongside Denver Broncos greats John Elway and Peyton Manning. He’s been waiting for this week to play in front of family and friends that don’t usually get the chance to see him play on a course he said he loves. Plus, there’s no telling how long it will be until the Tour returns to his backyard. Clark won earlier this year at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am and enters the week at No. 6 in the FedEx Cup after a T-7 last week at the first leg of the playoffs. Asked what it would mean to win the second leg in his hometown, he didn’t hesitate.
“It would be a dream come true,” he said, “been praying a lot about it and manifesting that maybe I would be the champion.”
Prize money on the PGA Tour has exploded over the last several years.
There can be a lot of money won playing professional tournament golf, especially on the PGA Tour and especially in the last two decades. And especially in the last two seasons.
Prize money has exploded on the circuit thanks to the signature events as well as the four majors boosting their purses.
Because of the influx of cash, four of the top five single-seasons for money earned happened during the 2022-23 season. One golfer has set a record for three years in a row. And Tiger Woods’ 2005 season ($10,628,024) is now not in the top 10.
Note: This list does not count bonus money awarded at the PGA Tour’s Tour Championship.
DeChambeau’s absence from Paris is because there were hard and fast rules and some math involved.
When putting together the four golfers who will represent the United States in the Summer Olympics in Paris next month, technically it doesn’t matter if a golfer is playing on the PGA Tour, the LIV Tour, the DP World Tour or your local mini-tour events. The politics of the game at the moment don’t involve the International Olympic Committee or the International Golf Federation.
But if that is true, how could U.S. Open winner and PGA Championship runner-up Bryson DeChambeau not be on the U.S. team?
The answer is simple, but with a complicated backstory.
Indeed, DeChambeau will not be representing the United States in Paris. Instead, the four Americans will be Scottie Scheffler, Patrick Cantlay, defending gold medalist from the Tokyo Games Xander Schauffele and 2023 U.S. Open champion Wyndham Clark.
Those are the top four Americans in the latest Official World Golf Rankings, and the rankings this week determine which golfers will be part of the 60-player field in the Summer Olympics. One thing to remember is that no country is allowed more than four players on a team, thus allowing for more countries to be represented in the Games.
Here’s where the politics come into play. DeChambeau is the fifth American in the OWGR, even though he is 10th overall. But DeChambeau has only earned ranking points in three tournaments this year — the Masters, the PGA Championship and the U.S. Open. He only earned points in the four majors in 2023. That’s because DeChambeau can’t play in PGA Tour events because he’s playing instead on the LIV Tour.
Never had the points
LIV Tour events don’t award any OWGR points for players, something that has been true since the start of LIV in 2022. The OWGR folks have significant issues with how the LIV Tour fields are populated, how a player can qualify for that tour and how a player is kicked out of events when other players have been brought in to play. LIV golf officials have repeatedly decried the lack of ranking points, but LIV players never had a promise that such points were coming to their tour despite their protests. Nothing has changed in that regard.
So DeChambeau, suddenly a wildly popular player who inspired chants of “USA! USA! USA” at the U.S. Open last week, is out of the Olympics even though it’s easy to say he could easily replace Clark or even Cantlay on Team USA.
Whether that is fair or not isn’t really part of the debate, though. Some believe the rules have to change if players like DeChambeau and Brooks Koepka at the 2023 PGA Championship are winning major titles, proving their prowess during the buildup to the Olympics. Others believe that Koepka and DeChambeau have made their choice knowing that world ranking points weren’t likely to come to that tour anytime soon.
Based on the rules, or actually a few different sets of rules, DeChambeau is not an Olympian. What would be unfair would be rewriting the rules Sunday night because a popular player won Sunday afternoon. In that regard, DeChambeau missing the Olympics is the right thing for the Games.
Xander Schauffele of the United States celebrates after winning the gold medal in the men’s golf competition at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games at the Kasumigaseki Country Club in Kawagoe on August 1, 2021. Photo by Yoshi Iwamoto/AFP via Getty Images
Several questions remain beyond whether Team USA or the Olympic Games could have found a way to get DeChambeau into the Paris Games. In the grand scheme of things, does the Olympics measure up to any of men’s golf’s four majors? Or the Tour Champions or The Players Championship? It’s likely the two gold medals winners from the last two Olympics (Schauffele and Justin Rose) would tout the Olympics, but wouldn’t measure it up to the standard of their major championship victories.
Second, will this debate even matter in 2028 when the Games come to Los Angeles? If you believe the talk from players and officials, negotiations to reunite the game are ongoing and proceeding, though at a slow pace. It’s impossible to believe the split in golf will still exist in 2028 when another U.S. Olympic team is put together, so this might be the only Olympics hit by the PGA Tour/LIV debate.
There was plenty of talk when women’s basketball star Caitlyn Clark was left off this year’s U.S. women’s team for the Olympics, with critics saying it hurts the ability to grow the game and bring more viewers to the Olympics. But Clark’s omission was made by a selection committee. DeChambeau’s absence from Paris is because there were hard and fast rules and some math involved, and DeChambeau fell short under the rules.
It will be a little less interesting on the golf course in Paris without DeChambeau, but he was always a longshot to make the U.S. team, even with a U.S. Open title to his name.
“This probably ranks as the coolest team I’ve ever made, for sure.”
Thanks to three wins in less than a year — 2023 Wells Fargo Championship, 2023 U.S. Open and 2024 AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am — world No. 5 Wyndham Clark is set to represent the United States in the Olympics from August 1-4 at Le Golf National in Paris. The course that opened in 1990 previously hosted the Ryder Cup in 2018, an event won by the Europeans 17½-10½.
Clark, who is currently playing in the PGA Tour’s final signature event of the season, the Travelers Championship at TPC River Highlands in Cromwell, Connecticut, told the media Thursday that he thinks the Olympics is “probably even bigger than” the Ryder Cup.
“The Ryder Cup in golf is kind of the biggest thing, but now that golf’s in the Olympics, it’s probably even bigger than that, because you’re representing your country at such a bigger level,” Clark said. “Hopefully, all four of us can go and try to snag some podium spots and give medals to the U.S. to try to win that total medal count. But, yeah, it’s pretty awesome. This probably ranks as the coolest team I’ve ever made, for sure.”
Team USA golfer Wyndham Clark reacts after a putt on the 12th green during day one fourballs round for the 44th Ryder Cup golf competition at Marco Simone Golf and Country Club. (Photo: Adam Cairns-USA TODAY Sports)
Clark has represented the U.S. twice in his career: the 2014 Arnold Palmer Cup and 2023 Ryder Cup.
Joining Clark at the Olympics will be world No. 1 Scottie Scheffler, No. 3 Xander Schauffele and No. 7 Collin Morikawa.
Wyndham Clark is headed to the 2024 Summer Olympics.
A year ago, former Oregon Duck golf star Wyndham Clark attained the crowning achievement of his professional career by grabbing his first major championship with a U.S. Open win at Los Angeles Country Club.
This new achievement may rival that when all is said and done.
On Tuesday morning, it was announced that Clark would be named to the U.S. Olympic team to compete in the 2024 Summer Olympic Games in Paris, France.
Clark will play alongside Scottie Scheffler, Colin Morikawa, and Xander Schauffele for Team USA in the golf event.
The men’s tournament will start on August 1st and run through the fourth this year at the Olympics. The competition will just consist of an individual stroke-play tournament over four days, much like a normal PGA Tour or major championship event.
While Clark was one of the hottest golfers in the world a year ago, he has struggled a bit this season, missing cuts in two of his last three events. However, he does have one victory at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, and a pair of runner-up finishes to Scheffler at The Arnold Palmer and the Players Championship, with a total of 4 top-10 finishes.
And later this summer, he will compete for his country, which is among the highest honors that any athlete can ask for.
Former Oregon Ducks star Wyndham Clark struggled to defend his US Open title on Sunday at Pinehurst No. 2.
A year ago, former Oregon Ducks star Wyndham Clark had the greatest day of his career, winning the U.S. Open at Los Angeles Country Club to claim his first major title in professional golf.
A year later, Clark didn’t quite have what it took to defend his title at the U.S. Open.
Clark was one of many golfer who got chewed up and spit out by Pinehurst No. 2 this weekend, carding an 11-over finish on Sunday. While Clark made the cut on the number, he never put together a great round, carding four consecutive rounds in the 70s, capped off with a frustrating 77 on Sunday.
Despite the poor performance, Clark is still among the most promising young players in the game right now, and he should be able to bounce back in short order.
After TGL’s stadium collapsed at the end of last year, its debut was pushed back to 2025. But as the date draws closer, we now have a significant information about the start-up technology-driven league started by Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy’s TMRW Sports.
The first night of matches will take place on Jan. 7, 2025, in primetime on ESPN.
“As we plan the 2025 launch of TGL presented by SoFi, we now have the first three Tuesdays in January circled to introduce sports fans to this new form of team golf. January is a tremendous time of year for fans looking for prime time sports and TGL’s launch will complement the start of the PGA TOUR season and take advantage of ESPN’s promotional machine across their coverage of the NFL and college football playoffs,” said Mike McCarley, founder and CEO of TMRW Sports.
Countless PGA Tour stars are involved in the new circuit, including Woods, McIlroy, Max Homa, Justin Thomas and Rickie Fowler, among others.
Learn everything you need to know about the TGL below.
In four rounds Clark validated just how great he already was.
It’s hard to fathom that just one calendar year ago, Wyndham Clark arrived at the Wells Fargo Championship winless in his career on the PGA Tour. After a series of failures when the trophy appeared to be there for the taking, the then-29-year-old wondered if he was destined to never win during his career.
Seven days later on May 7, his childhood dream came true by winning one of the Tour’s biggest events on one of the best stages in golf. There’s no faking it around Quail Hollow Club and in four rounds Clark validated just how great he already was and fired a warning shot to the rest of the golf world of what was still to come.
In short order, he went on to become the U.S. Open champion in June, represent Team USA at the Ryder Cup in September, shoot a course-record 60 en route to winning the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am in February and climb to No. 3 in the world. But none of that may have happened unless he achieved his long-anticipated breakthrough at Quail Hollow in Charlotte when Clark shot a final-round 3-under 68 for a four-shot victory over Xander Schauffele at the 2023 Wells Fargo Championship to earn his first career win on the PGA Tour.
Wyndham Clark salutes the gallery after putting out to win the 2023 Wells Fargo Championship at Quail Hollow Club in Charlotte. (Photo: Jim Dedmon-USA TODAY Sports)
“I’ve dreamt about this since I was probably 6 years old,” Clark said that day. “Since I’ve been on the PGA Tour, you fantasize about it all the time, and I’ve done it multiple times this year where I catch myself daydreaming about winning, and to do it at this golf course against this competition is better than I could ever have imagined.”
Clark struggled to hold back tears as he sank a bogey putt on the 18th hole to seal the win, finishing the tournament with a 72-hole aggregate of 19-under 265, the second-lowest score in relation to par in tournament history.
No one had ever doubted Clark’s talent nor his work ethic, but in order to be a champion he first had to learn to harness his emotions. Since a young age, Clark has been called a winner. That’s what his mom, Lise, who was a national sales director for Mary Kay Cosmetics before dying of breast cancer at age 54 in 2013, used to call him. Clark grew up in Colorado. It was his mother who first took him to the driving range, and they were always close. Before she passed, she told her son that she wanted him to ‘play big,’ a life motto that has stuck with him ever since.
“She was always kind of my rock in my life,” Clark said. “In junior golf, there are times when you’re so mad, and you feel like you should have done better, or you’re embarrassed with how you played, and she was always there to comfort me.”
Without his mother, who died when he was 19, Clark was lost. About a year later, he contemplated quitting golf.
“When I was on the golf course I couldn’t have been angrier. I was breaking clubs when I didn’t even hit that bad of a shot. I was walking off golf courses,” Clark recalled. “Just drove as fast as I could. Didn’t know where I was going. The pressure of golf and then not having my mom there and someone that I could call was really tough for me.” On multiple occasions at Oklahoma State, he emptied his locker as if he was going to quit only for his then-coach Mike McGraw to pick up his gear and put it back. But eventually, McGraw decided that Clark needed to work on himself, not his swing.
“He said, ‘Hey, I think it’s just best if you step away from golf. At first I really was mad. I’m competitive. I didn’t want to not play, and I thought it was bad if you redshirted, that you weren’t good enough,” Clark recalled. “But it was also the best thing for me. I owe Mike a lot for that.”
When Clark returned to the team under new coach Alan Bratton, he remained intense, and when he didn’t make the squad for the 2016 NCAA tournament, he decided to transfer to Oregon. At the same time, John Ellis returned there to his alma mater to serve as an assistant coach to Casey Martin, who told him, “You’re going to be watching over this guy a lot.”
Wyndham Clark of Oregon at the 2016 East Lake Cup at East Lake Golf Club in Atlanta. (Photo: Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images)
“I heard of this talented kid but there are a lot of those in the college ranks,” Ellis recalled. “What stood out was that he wanted to be the best in the world and he was willing to work harder than everybody.”
Clark was regularly beating his teammates shooting rounds of 67s and 68s but Ellis would shoot 64 or 65. His message to Clark was simple: “I couldn’t make it on Tour. If you can’t beat me, how are you going to make it out there?” Under Ellis’s watchful eye, Clark blossomed into the 2017 Pac-12 individual champion and was named Golfweek’s Collegiate Player of the Year.
Unfortunately, for Martin, Ellis did such a good job that when Clark turned pro, he took Ellis with him to be his caddie. Ellis, who had a cup of coffee on the Tour, had played enough at the highest level to realize Clark had all the tools to be a star.
But Clark still hadn’t dealt with his demons and, while he reached the Tour in short measure, there were times when he became so frustrated with his play that he was ready to quit again. Indeed, he withdrew from the Rocket Mortgage Classic in 2020, citing a back injury but he could’ve just as easily cited his attitude. Strangely enough, Ellis had a reputation during his playing days for being a hot head too, the type of player who didn’t hesitate to snap a club in half if it was misbehaving.
But as a caddie for the past six years, he’d been a calming influence for Clark. As Clark continued to run hot, Ellis and the rest of Clark’s team orchestrated an intervention in November 2022 and suggested he meet with Julie Elion, a mental coach who has helped the likes of Phil Mickelson and Jimmy Walker win majors. He was reluctant at first, but as part of their work, Clark has benefited from meditating, praying, keeping a journal and setting daily goals. It isn’t Elion’s style to take credit – “I just held up the mirror,” she said – but Clark and his team are quick to say his improved attitude and growing confidence were the missing ingredient in his success.
Wyndham Clark hits his tee shot on the 16th during the third round of the 2023 Wells Fargo Championship at Quail Hollow Club. (Photo: Jim Dedmon-USA TODAY Sports)
At the Wells Fargo Championship, Clark’s mental game was put to the test. He opened with a pair of 67s and then catapulted into the lead with a remarkable 8-under 63 in the third round. That day, Clark hit the first 17 greens before tugging his approach to the final green just enough that his ball settled on the fringe, missing perfection by inches.
“I mean, no, I wasn’t thinking about that,” he said, when asked if he was aware of what he almost accomplished. “I was more thinking I just hope that ball’s not going in the water … the only stat I care about is where I finish at the end of the tournament.”
Clark and Schauffele, who shot 64, had played so well on Saturday that they were three strokes clear of the field, and the trophy hunt turned into a two-man fight on a sunny Sunday.
Clark had come close to winning – he had 14 top 10s on the PGA Tour – but he struggled in final rounds, getting “too amped up,” and dwelling on bad shots. He had zero PGA Tour wins in 133 previous starts and in his dark moments, he would complain that he was destined to never win a Tour event.
“I know that sounds crazy because I’ve only been out here five years, but I had a lot of chances to where I was within two or three shots either going into the back nine or starting on a Sunday and I always seem to fall short, and not only that, but seem like I fell back in positions,” Clark explained. “I think in the past I sometimes shied away maybe from those pressure moments because I would get too amped up.”
Leading into the Tour’s annual stop in Charlotte, it seemed more than ever that it was a matter of when not if he’d win. He was trending in the right direction, finishing in the top six in three of the last five tournaments he’d entered, including a third-place finish at the Zurich Classic of New Orleans, a two-man team event, in his previous start.
Clark, who arrived in Charlotte as the world’s 80th ranked player, opened the final round with a two-shot lead, but he pulled his tee shot left on No. 1 over the cart path and made a shaky bogey. Schauffele sense an opportunity and vaulted into the lead with birdies at Nos. 3 and 7. Was this going to be another case of Clark buckling under the pressure of trying to win his first tournament? Not this time.
“I just told myself to relax, I have a lot more holes,” said Clark. “In the past, it always seemed so tough for me on Sundays. Today, I wouldn’t let my mind go in that direction. I just kept reminding myself that I can play great golf. … And I didn’t want to be the person that I was in previous Sundays in previous years, because that person probably shoots 2- or 3-over (par) today, or even more, and loses his head and gets mad out there and doesn’t control his emotions.”
Play big
Remembering his mom, these are words @Wyndham_Clark lives by on and off the course.
The momentum changed between the eighth and 12th holes, with Clark gaining a stroke on each of them. He chipped to within 4 feet at the par-5 eighth and rolled in the birdie putt to pull back into a tie and then took the lead for good at the turn when Schauffele’s par putt lipped out on No. 9. Clark kept the pressure on sinking birdie putts at No. 10 and 12 sandwiched in between a Schauffele bogey on No. 11 and his own dazzling up and down from the bunker, pushing the lead to four strokes with six holes left to play.
“A buzzsaw,” is how Schauffele described the way Clark stormed back.
Clark matched Schauffele’s birdies at the 14th and 15th holes to maintain a four-shot edge heading into the difficult closing three holes known as the Green Mile. As former PGA Championship winner Rich Beem, who was commentating for Sky Sports, said to fellow commentator Colt Knost, “How is somebody 20 under par on this golf course?”
Clark led the field in Strokes-Gained Tee to Green, greens in regulation and SG: Approach, and ranked third in SG: Putting – that’s how – a lethal combination.Clark played the final three holes in 1 over, bogeying the 18th before hugging Ellis and lifting his arms aloft. Clark won $3.6 million out of the total purse of $20 million with the victory. It also convinced Clark once and for all that he had found a better mental space.
“Finally winning, it was like, ‘All right, this stuff actually works,’” Clark said of his emphasis early last season on the mental side of the game.
“The Wells Fargo was so healing for him,” Elion said in as episode of season two of the Netflix documentary “Full Swing, which traced Clark’s journey. “That lifted years and years of pain.”
The weight of expectation had been lifted, too, said Clark’s college coach, Martin: “Like, ‘Oh, I’ve justified my talent. I’m not a failure,’ you know, kind of a deal. He is a huge talent. I mean, he’s not a medium talent. He is a massive, massive talent. I mean, top 10 player in the world talent wise, for sure. If he just, you know, doesn’t get in his own way, which is easier said than done.”
What a beautiful mind Clark had all along. He proved to himself at Quail Hollow that he’s one of the best players in the world and he’s been ‘playing big’ ever since.
The world No. 1 has now won in four of his last five starts.
Scottie Scheffler spent an extra night in Hilton Head Island, South Carolina, which typically wouldn’t be such a drag if not for his wife Meredith being pregnant back home in Dallas and awaiting the couple’s first child later this month.
But Mother Nature had other plans, forcing Scheffler to return to Harbour Town Golf Links on Monday morning to play his final three holes of the 2024 RBC Heritage and wrap up his fourth PGA Tour title in his past five starts.
One week and one day after Scheffler slipped into the famed Green Jacket awarded to the Masters champ for the second time in three years, the 27-year-old Texan added another colorful jacket – this time in trademark Tartan – to his closet and became the first reigning Masters champion to win the RBC Heritage since Bernhard Langer in 1985.
Scheffler, who was 4-under through 15 holes in the final round and 20-under overall when play was suspended due to darkness on Sunday, made two pars and a finishing bogey and signed for a 3-under 68 on Monday, three shots better than Sahith Theegala (68) and four better than reigning U.S. Open champion Wyndham Clark (65) and past FedEx Cup champion Patrick Cantlay (68). Scheffler banked another $3.6 million to surpass $18 million in earnings this season – and it’s still April.
“I didn’t show up here just to have some sort of ceremony and have people tell me congratulations,” said Scheffler of avoiding a post-Masters victory hangover. “I came here with a purpose.”
CBS Sports roving reporter Colt Knost, who grew up with Scheffler following him around Dallas’s Royal Oaks Golf Club, already has one of the best nicknames in golf: The Big Gravy. But he may have earned another one – Knost-radamus – for a prediction seemingly as accurate as those of the 16th century French astrologer Nostradamus. In February 2022, when Scheffler won his first Tour title at the WM Phoenix Open, Knost proclaimed him to be “a worldbeater,” and added, “Now that he’s got that first one, I think the floodgates are going to open for him.”
Scheffler’s latest triumph is his 10th career title, the first player to win that many times (or more) in three seasons since Dustin Johnson did so between 2015-16 and 2017-18. There’s no indication that this flood of success for the world No. 1 will stop any time soon. Did Knost imagine Scheffler would dominate on the PGA Tour? “I really did,” he said. “He never plays badly and he’s one of the most competitive people I’ve ever met. He will never just go through the motions.”
Theegala, who recalled playing against Scheffler for the first time in the Starburst Junior Golf Classic at Waco, Texas, didn’t remember ever beating Scheffler, who is a year older than him, in a single junior tournament. Competing with Scheffler, who leads the Tour in 30 statistical categories this season, hasn’t gotten any easier lately. “It’s pretty epic,” Theegala said of Scheffler, who has shot even par or better in all 40 rounds this season and became the first player to win four times in five starts since Tiger Woods in 2007-08. “I was talking to Carl, my caddie, walking to 15 tee box. I was like, I grew up watching the end of Tiger, got to see Rory, DJ, Jordan, like all these guys kind of dominate for a period of time, and I was like, we could be in the midst of something really, really special.”
Some observers suggested that Scheffler would skip the RBC Heritage but Scheffler said he never wavered in his commitment to the tournament. After winning the Masters, Scheffler flew home to Dallas to be with Meredith and didn’t show up to Hilton Head until Tuesday. He played only a nine-hole practice round on Wednesday and spotted much of the field a head start, shanking a bunker shot at his third hole in the first round, making double bogey and needing two late birdies to post 69. He trailed by six and complained of fatigue. But after recharging his batteries, he didn’t make a single bogey or worse until the 72nd hole of the tournament, and even in that case Scheffler said he was counting that one as a par as he played the smart shots with a comfortable lead. He stormed back with a 65 on Friday and was lurking three back before reminding everyone who is boss with a bogey-free 63 to claim a one-stroke lead.
In the final round, Scheffler laid down the hammer early, chipping in at the par-5 second hole from 53 feet for eagle. His bump-and-run, executed to perfection, marked his 11th hole-out of the season. He tacked on a birdie at the par-5 fifth and strung together six consecutive pars before the horn blew. When play resumed he wedged to 6 feet for another birdie at 13. When he made his lone blunder, pull-hooking a 4-iron into the water due to mud on his ball at the par-5 15th, he took a penalty drop and carved a beautiful shot to 11 feet. Darkness had fallen and he could’ve wait until Monday to strike the par putt but he opted to play on and sank it for good measure. While that snapped a streak of 53 consecutive holes without recording a score of more than a four on his card, dating to the 15th hole in his first round, he pumped his fist with glee for keeping a clean card (to that point).
“I felt like I was due for one to drop,” said Scheffler, whose closing bogey gave him a winning total 19-under 265. “So I figured might as well hit it now.”
Clark mounted an early charge, making an eagle and six birdies in his first 11 holes to inch within a stroke of the lead. But his effort to run down Scheffler was spoiled at the 12th hole when Clark tried to punch between trees. His ball struck one of them squarely and ricocheted out of bounds. He made double bogey.
“It was kind of fun for a little bit,” said Clark, who improved to a career-best ranking of No. 3 in the world. “Seemed like maybe we had a chance to do something crazy.”
Only Mother Nature could prolong Scheffler’s victory another day. Play was suspended due to inclement weather at 4:28 p.m. ET, for two hours and 32 minutes. The delay meant they ran out of daylight.
But on Monday, Scheffler capped off winning for the fourth time this year, all of them Signature events. He finished tied for second in the only tournament he did not win during his scorching run. For the week, he topped the field of 69 in Strokes Gained: Off the Tee, SG: Tee to Green, SG: Approach the Green and scrambling.
“We’re watching greatness right now,” CBS’s Jim Nantz said. “It doesn’t happen all the time, but it sure is fun when you find yourself witnessing something like this.
Nantz’s NFL broadcast partner, former Dallas Cowboys QB Tony Romo, who played in the Invited Celebrity Classic on PGA Tour Champions last week, estimated he’s played around 500 rounds with Scheffler and said he’s never failed to break 70.
“Which is insane,” said Romo who played with him the week before the Masters at Brook Hollow, a Dallas club. “I have not seen a guy hit a golf ball like this since Tiger back in the 2000s when I played with him, the way he was striking the ball, the compression, the trajectory, the spin rate. It was impressive, and I was like, ‘He ain’t losing that tournament.’ ”
No one stopped him at the RBC Heritage either. Could Scheffler be on his way to a season for the record books? That may depend whether history repeats itself — all 10 of his wins have come in the months of February, March and April. So, time will tell if Scheffler can continue to dominate when the calendar flips to May – just don’t bet against the floodgates closing any time soon.
