Three years after his breakthrough U.S. Open victory at Los Angeles Country Club, Wyndham Clark is a U.S. Open champion once again. With a final-round 73, Clark finished the week at Shinnecock Hills Golf Club at four under, good enough for a one-shot victory over Sam Burns and a second-career major championship win.
“The first one was just kind of a breakthrough of knowing I can do it,” Clark said. “This one was a lot of redemption.”
It wasn’t always pretty for Clark on Sunday. After entering the day with a six-shot lead over his nearest competitors, he fought his swing for much of the front nine, hitting just three greens in the opening stanza. He battled a crowd that cheered for his mistakes and willed on his competitors. And he made just enough mistakes to let those in chase believe they had a chance.
In the end, though, no one came up big in the clutch moments as often as Clark.
Perhaps no moment typified the 32-year-old’s weekend heroics better than his unlikely birdie at the par-5 16th. After driving his ball in the fescue, Clark chopped back out into the fairway and then hit his approach to 25 feet. His putt rolled directly into the center of the cup, his fifth holed putt over 20 feet for the week.
“To make birdie there was honestly a bonus,” Clark said. “It wasn’t an easy day out on the golf course.”
Clark followed up the clutch birdie with an untimely three-putt bogey on the 17th, necessitating par on the final hole to clinch the title. Much like he did at LACC, Clark hit his patented pull cut off the tee and then hit a so-so approach to the front of the green. And, just like he did on the west coast, Clark cozied his 32-foot lag putt within inches of the hole, securing his par and the championship.
“It was very similar having to two-putt to win,” Clark said. “It was surreal, to be honest.”
But while the clutch moments on the back nine are the ones that will be remembered, it was his scrambling on the front nine on Sunday that allowed them to come to fruition.
Despite missing six greens on the front nine, Clark saved par time and time again. Mirroring his third-round heroics, he scrambled to save par on Nos. 4, 6 and 9 with creativity that would make Seve Ballesteros blush. Then, once he turned to the back nine, he found his ball-striking rhythm once and for all, playing the inward half in even par to post the winning number at four under.
“I played some ugly golf the past two days,” he said. “But my putter and my short game kept me in it. To make all the putts that I did with my Ping putter that I lover so much, has been amazing.”
After the final putt dropped, Clark was greeted by a host of friends and family on the 18th green. Among them was his father, Randall, who took the red-eye from Colorado to surprise his son on Father’s Day.
With the win, Clark joins Tiger Woods, Bryson DeChambeau and Brooks Koepka as Americans with multiple U.S. Open titles in the 21st century. His four-round score of 276 also matches Retief Goosen’s 2004 total at Shinnecock Hills for the lowest in U.S. Open history at the storied club.
