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Some bogeys are better than others.
During Sunday’s final round of the 123rd U.S. Open, Wyndham Clark escaped with just one dropped shot at the par-5 eighth hole after his second shot bounced left and into a dry barranca. On his first attempt to dislodge the ball from the underbrush, his club slid underneath the ball and didn’t move. He hacked at it again and this time the ball screamed over the green. At that moment, Clark said his mind started racing and it looked as if his dream of winning a major might unravel like a spool of thread. Fortunately, caddie John Ellis stepped in to set his player at ease.
“He said, ‘Hey, Dub, we’re fine. We’re just going to get this up-and-down and we’re fine,’” recalled Clark.
He did just that, closing in even-par 70 at Los Angeles Country Club’s North Course and holding on for a one-stroke victory over Rory McIlroy at the U.S. Open.
Clark, 29, and Ellis, 43, are back at it this week at TPC River Highlands for the Travelers Championship in Cromwell, Connecticut. The duo first teamed up at Oregon in 2016 after Clark transferred there from Oklahoma State for his senior year. Oregon had just won the national title and its star player, Aaron Wise, turned pro, freeing up enough financial aid for men’s head coach Casey Martin, who had recruited Clark in high school when he played in the Pacific Coast Amateur in Eugene, Oregon, to bring him on board. At the same time, Ellis’s pro career was fizzling out.
He had turned pro in 2003 after being named a two-time All-Pac-10 player at Oregon and bounced around golf’s minor leagues, winning the Canadian Tour’s Order of Merit in 2008 and twice qualifying for the U.S. Open in 2008 and 2011. Between 2004 and 2011, “Jelly,” as the other caddies call him, played in nine PGA Tour events, missing the cut in seven of them, and made just 16 Korn Ferry Tour starts between 2005 and 2015. With his playing career stalled, Ellis turned to coaching, returning to his alma mater as an assistant to Martin.
Clark, who lost his mother at age 19 and was prone to emotional outbursts on the course, was in need of a fresh start. Martin looked to Ellis to help rebuild his confidence on the course.
“I put a plan in place to get him get him back to where his talent could come out. I just kind of connected the dots,” Martin said. “At our first event, I said, ‘You’re going to be watching over this guy a lot. I want you to caddie for him and play a big role in his life and just be with him all the time and make sure he’s mentally and emotionally in a good place.’ John did an unbelievable job for a guy that’s never coached before. He and Wyndham hit it off. He has an amazing ability to kind of tease Wyndham and to get his point across without being overly serious. He absolutely nailed it.”
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Under Ellis’s watchful eye, Clark blossomed into the 2017 Pac-12 Conference 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 had played enough at the highest level to realize Clark had all the tools to be a star on the PGA Tour.
“I mean, he is a huge talent. I mean, he’s not a medium talent. He is a massive, massive talent,” Martin said. “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.”
Strangely enough, Ellis had a reputation 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 five years, he’s been a calming influence for Clark.
“He was Tyrrell Hatton as a player and Tony Robbins as a caddie,” CBS analyst Colt Knost said.
In what he described as an intervention, Ellis was a prominent voice in convincing Clark to begin seeing mental coach Julie Elion, which has paid quick dividends. Last week, Clark described Ellis, who was awarded the first-ever U.S. Open Caddie Award, as a friend, mentor and coach, too.
“Our relationship has been so close and John has been kind of my rock out here. He’s a great caddie, and he’s had opportunities to caddie for other people and he turned it down because he wanted to be there for me,” Clark said. “I owe a lot to him. I feel like John is meant to be my caddie, but it’s so much more than just a business relationship. We’re really close and good friends, and I’m close with his family and he’s close with mine. This just makes it so much more special that we have that bond and relationship.”