LOS ANGELES -- It's difficult to be the guy that follows the legend. In Wyndham Clark's case, it's both difficult to be the one who follows the legend and the one who defeats another. That's what happened Sunday at the 2023 U.S. Open when Clark followed Brooks Koepka's fifth major championship victory last month at the PGA Championship at Oak Hill with downing Rory McIlroy by a single stroke at Los Angeles Country Club.
Because of this contrast, Clark was undersold by some -- not all, but some -- as a flukey major champion. While it's true that he's neither a household name nor a modern star, it's equally true that he has room to grow into both. For a reconfigured game at the age of 29 that resulted in two massive victories, a rise into the top 15 of the Official World Golf Rankings and almost certainly a spot on the United States Ryder Cup team in Rome this September foreshadows a future ceiling that is much higher than most one-hit wonders at major championships.
We love to categorize athletes, and perhaps nowhere is that more true than in an individual sport like golf. We want comps and templates, and we desire for everything to be nice, neat and clean. But the reality is that the game doesn't work like that, and there is not a perfect analogy for a majority of players, maybe Clark most of all.
Is he Jimmy Walker, a late-blooming, one-time major winner who plays in a Ryder Cup or two before fading back into the peloton over a few years of success? Is he Keegan Bradley, a ball-striking wonder who wins a major in his 20s but doesn't have the gifts to sustain success at the level this year portends? Is he Daniel Berger or Sam Burns -- great, top 20-like players who maintain that level for years and years -- only with a major to his name? Only time will tell, of course, but consider these three qualities when pondering what Clark may become.
Evolution of tee-to-green play
It's so rare to go from below average to average in a category like iron play. Clark, like Burns before him, went from bad to great. The transition has been as extraordinary as it has been unexpected. Look at the difference in these numbers!
"A lot of people say I have a good swing," said Clark. "I believe I have a good swing. My first few years on Tour it actually really bothered me because people would say, 'Oh, you have such a great swing,' and I didn't know where the ball was going, and that was really frustrating for me. I worked with some great coaches and they were very good at what they do, but I didn't know where the ball was going and I didn't own it.
"So when I decided to go on my own -- I do work a little bit with my caddie, but typically it's on my own -- I learned about my game and my swing, and that's what I did when I was younger. I knew how to hit shots and I got away from that when I was with a coach. Now when I'm in practice, I'm always trying to get back to neutral. So if one day it's really cutty, I'm hitting huge draws on the range. And then some days it gets kind of too dry and I hit huge cuts and get it back to neutral and, honestly, that's what I've done for the last year and a half. And so I felt like I've kept my swing in those parameters to where regardless I can play good golf if I'm hitting a little draw or a little cut, and my stats have improved immensely by doing that."
Age
Clark is 29 and a half. He's younger than Jordan Spieth and Justin Thomas, and it may just be that he's simply growing into his starring role at a slightly later age than those two. I'm not saying he's on their level, but I am saying he might be closer than some of the reaction on Sunday made it seem.
"I got out here pretty quick, but even those first few years I felt like I underperformed," said Clark, who did not win on the Korn Ferry Tour or in his first 100 starts on the PGA Tour. "I've had many times where I've gone home and was yelling in my car and punching things and just so mad that I'm like, 'Why can't I do what my peers are doing that I know I can play with and against and beat?'"
He seems to want the ball
Ten years from now, three shots will come to mind. The first is his clanger off the pin on No. 18 on Saturday that made everybody gasp. Revel in the twirl, yes, but don't let it distract you from the homing missile itself that got him into the final pairing on Sunday. The second came Sunday at the 14th and effectively ended the championship. As it hung out over the L.A. high-rises, Clark went to one knee begging for it to land in a space about as wide as Shaq is tall. It did. It was the kind of shot you can only hit if you're completely detached from reality or if the intestinal fortitude is elite. My guess with him is the latter.
Golf shot. pic.twitter.com/3e1cABHwg2
— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) June 19, 2023
The final shot was the lag putt at the last. The tension on the grounds was enough to make the legs of even non-competitors wobble just a bit. Even for LACC, it got silent as Clark took it back and his speed from 60 feet could not have been more perfect. A fist pump confirmed what I had just seen: the tournament was over. It made me wonder, in that moment, if he's going to go 4-0-0 in Rome paired with Scottie Scheffler.
Add it all up, and I'm not sure what to think. Clark is probably the least-heralded great player in the game today. That was true prior to this U.S. Open. He came into the week ranked No. 12 at Data Golf, which measures up the best scorers in the game, and yet there were more folks walking inside the ropes with Clark and Fowler on Sunday than folks who picked either of them before the week started.
It's a reminder that even in the midst of a long run featuring more prominent major winners, the unexpected nature of golf often carries the day. Or perhaps Clark belongs on a list over the last few years that includes names like Koepka, Rahm, Scheffler, Thomas and Johnson. Only time will tell which of these is true (perhaps they both are). That is part of the fun of trying to figure all of this out.
One thing is certain, though, and that's that a 20-something American who hits the hell out of the golf ball just held off a gaggle of major winners at the toughest test in golf. That's not nothing. It's something. Exactly what that is, though, will only be determined with time.
Let's dive into few more thoughts on a terrific U.S. Open in Los Angeles.
Final takeaways from 2023 U.S. Open
1. More Wyndham! My favorite part of the tournament was Clark's reaction on 18. He's obviously an emotional player, and person, so to watch the war he had with himself as he tried to drag the toughest trophy in the game across the finish line was as dramatic as it gets. How many times have we seen flatline reactions at the end, though? Whether out of relief or because the game transforms you into a robot, too often we see players give a low-energy reaction to a life-changing moment. Wyndham Clark is clearly not one of those players. It's compelling when anyone is willing to show you their heart, and he is clearly willing to do so.
There's a lot more behind that, of course, as his closing quote at last night's presser disclosed. Clark lost his mom to breast cancer a decade ago, and he said that winning a major championship actually engendered more thoughts about her than normal.
"My mom was -- she was so positive and such a motivator in what she did. She'd be crying tears of joy. She would just -- she called me 'winner' when I was little, so she would just say, 'I love you, Winner.' I was a mama's boy, so there would be a lot of hugging and crying together. But I know she'd be very proud of me. I miss her, and it's obviously great to think about her, and being here in L.A. and winning something like this makes me think of her even more than maybe my day-to-day when I'm not playing a championship."
Rickie Fowler touchingly encouraged Clark as well as they embraced after the thrilling round played together.
"I went back in there and just said, 'Your mom was with you. She'd be very proud.'"
Golf, often because of its relational nature and because players have hours to kill every day by chatting and building friendship, has a way of surprising you in the very best ways.
2. Scottie Scheffler's floor: For the fourth consecutive tournament, Scheffler finished in the top five. For the ninth consecutive tournament, he was in the top five from tee-to-green play. He has lost to -- this is not a typo -- 63 golfers across 14 tournaments this year. We probably take it a bit for granted, but his floor is comically high right now. So high that it's far more surprising when he finishes outside the top 10 than if he wins by, say, five or more. It must be frustrating to not have capitalized more than he has, but his historic season marches on. I feel like I've said this for two straight months, but he might win his next five tournaments.
3. The LACC experience: The golf course was better than people gave it credit for, but the overall vibe was worse. Though I would be a proponent of returning to the venue -- one pro called it a better test than Augusta National -- I would not be a proponent of returning to that specific arena for all the reasons Joel Beall laid out here.
Though the energy improved on the weekend, especially on Sunday, the ending still lacked juice. There is almost always a rhythm at major championships to both the flow of play as well as the crowd's reception. This was one step forward and two steps back. There was, haphazardly, no trajectory from the first shot to the last putt. It fell as flat in person as it did on TV, which is unfortunate given the locale and the fun, challenging, intellectually interesting nature of the actual course.
Regardless of what I am a proponent of, however, the USGA will return to LACC 16 years from now.
Future men's U.S. Open venues:
— No Laying Up (@NoLayingUp) June 19, 2023
'24 - Pinehurst
'25 - Oakmont
'26 - Shinnecock
'27 - Pebble
'28 - Winged Foot
'29 - Pinehurst
'30 - Merion
'31 - Riviera (not announced)
'32 - Pebble
'33 - Oakmont
'34 - Oakland Hills
'35 - Pinehurst
'36 - OPEN
'37 - Pebble
'38 - OPEN
'39 - LACC
4. What to make of Rick: Is Rickie Fowler -- I can't believe I'm saying this -- a tragic figure? The general parlance around him has always been that the substance didn't meet the sizzle, a take that was somehow both with and without merit. Fowler's enjoyed a good career, and he's won more than his detractors give him credit for. However, he's also been a face -- not the face, but a face -- of an entire sport, and I'm not sure his arc has warranted that.
What I saw at LACC, however, was a man who has been through the wringer and emerged with greater depth. A man who brought some gravity to the table. A man with a professional sobriety that only falling behind MJ Daffue and Callum Tarren in the OWGR can engender. What I saw was a man who is easier to root for than ever before -- for his fans, sure, but also for anyone who previously rolled their eyes at his commercial appeal.
There is, perhaps fascinatingly, a more magnetic draw to the player who had it all, lost it and tries to get it back. He's not an old warhorse. At least not yet. But he's more hardened by life, more grateful for success and, I know this is going to sound crazy, but Fowler is more compelling than he's ever been.
5. Hoylake awaits: Royal Liverpool last hosted the Open Championship in 2014 when ... Rory McIlroy won the claret jug and ... Rickie Fowler finished T2. A lot can change over the next several weeks, of course, but we will likely go into that tournament with McIlroy as the favorite and Fowler much closer to it than he was at this week's U.S. Open. I don't think you'll find anyone that week who would mind seeing those two run it back, perhaps alone in the final pairing this time barring another future star twirling on their souls late Saturday night and taking a knee to run out the clock late Sunday afternoon.