CASTLE ROCK, Colo. — Wyndham Clark heard the murmurs—some of which were a bit louder than that—about his participation in the Olympic Golf Tournament, where he was seemingly out of contention before the national anthem finished playing.
Clark started the tournament at Le Golf National by going bogey-double-bogey before signing for a first-round 75.
Coming off a poor year in the major championships, it understandably didn’t look great for Clark that he was struggling at an event where some wondered if the best Americans were being represented.
But Clark rebounded. With not much to play for other than pride, he shot scores of 65-65-65 to tie for 14th. The result helped him put a different spin on what has been an interesting year.
“That definitely was a huge confidence boost for me because I know there was a lot of media talk about me being there and how bad I played and whatnot, and I wanted to prove to myself and my country that I'm a top American player,’’ Clark said Tuesday at Castle Pines Golf Club, site of this week’s BMW Championship.
“I played awesome golf. I don't think anyone other than maybe Scottie (Scheffler, who won the gold medal) played better golf than me those last three days. I just shot myself out of it the first round.
“Then last week was really solid golf for four rounds. I feel like my game is trending in the right direction at the right time.’’
Clark tied for seventh last week at the FedEx St. Jude Championship, arrives at the second FedEx Cup playoff event in sixth place in the points race and is ranked fifth in the world.
The results have been surprisingly better than typically conveyed, simply because Clark saved his worst for the biggest tournaments.
Now he’s back on his home turf for a rare Colorado golf event. Clark, who grew up in the Denver area, has never played a professional event in his home state, one he dominated as both a junior and amateur player.
“It's amazing. I wish we played here every year, to be honest,’’ Clark said. “This tournament hasn't been here in 10 years, and then at Castle Pines, almost 20 years. I grew up coming to this place and always dreamt of playing this tournament. 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.
“To be back here playing in front of my home crowd is pretty special.’’
Clark was referring to the BMW Championship, which was last played in Colorado in 2014 at Cherry Hills, site of last year’s U.S. Amateur (won by Nick Dunlap, who is in the field this week), as well as Arnold Palmer’s 1960 U.S. Open victory.
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Billy Horschel won at Cherry Hills 10 years ago, then followed up with a victory at the Tour Championship to capture the FedEx Cup title.
The other tournament Clark references was the International, an event that was played at Castle Pines from 1986 through 2006. (Fun fact: Tiger Woods produced one of his three career holes-in-one at the 1998 International, an ace that was not caught on film.)
The tournament used a modified Stableford scoring format (now used at that Barricuda Championhip).
“My first tournament I ever attended was this event,’’ Clark, 30, said. “I think I was seven or eight years old. I remember being on the ninth green watching guys like David Duval and Retief Goosen and Ernie Els and David Toms come up the fairways and just visualizing and imagining myself being here one day, and it's kind of crazy, fast forward 20-some years and I'm here. It's pretty amazing. I'm excited to be back.’’
Before getting here, Clark was something of a local phenom. He won the Colorado State Amateur in 2010 at age 16, a year after having won the State Junior by 11 strokes.
He twice won state high school championships in Colorado, finishing runner-up the other two years.
After a year at Oklahoma State, Clark transferred to Oregon.
When Clark won the U.S. Open last year at Los Angeles Country Club, he joined Hale Irwin and Steve Jones as Open champions from the state of Colorado.
“The last time I played a competitive event of some magnitude was the Pac-12 championship at Boulder Country Club, and that was eight, nine years ago,’’ he said. “It's amazing to be back here, and I'm just excited to see friends and family that I don't get to see that often, get to play in front of people that have watched me my whole life, and it's kind of come full circle of teachers, golf coaches, trainers, friends that have kind of been through this whole thing with me from a young age, and now we're here playing at the highest level at a course that I've played quite a bit growing up, so it's pretty neat.’’
And Clark sees no reason why he can’t get in the mix this week and win his fourth PGA Tour title. Although he doesn’t play at Castle Pines often, he clearly has far more experience at the venue—that will play to 8,100 yards at 6,500 feet of altitude—than anyone else.
His year, also, has been better than advertised. In 19 starts, he has seven top-10 finishes, including a victory at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, where he shot a third-round 60.
Clark also finished second to Scheffler at both the Arnold Palmer Invitational and the Players Championship before some lackluster results.
“I've gone back to a little bit more of a process,’’ Clark said. “I think I was getting a little too outcome focused. As I had some early success in the year and was playing amazing golf, I think I just got—just falling short of Scottie a couple times and then you're thinking, okay—I just got too much into winning and trying to break through and win in some of those big events.
“Then I got away from everything that made me successful, and I feel like recently kind of in the last probably four weeks I've gotten back to the process of focusing on the things that got me here, playing good golf, and I've started to play good golf.
“I've had some poor rounds to start, but I feel like I'm overcoming that and doing a lot better. So I think my game is trending in the right direction.’’
This article was originally published on www.si.com as Wyndham Clark Is Rounding Back Into Form Just in Time for Homecoming at BMW Championship.
