As Clark’s game rallies, he apologizes for tantrums

Denver’s Wyndham Clark said he wants to make amends for actions at Oakmont

By Jim Bebbington

Colorado Golf Hall of Fame member Wyndham Clark is the first one to tell you – he has not had a good 2025.

Last weekend Clark had his best finish of the year so far in the Open Championship, ending up tied for 4th.

His Thursday round put him both at risk of missing the cut when he shot a 5-over par 75. He played early in the rain and had two double-bogeys and a single bogey, surrounded by pars. He started off Friday with a bogey on the first hole and appeared headed for the Delta ticket counter for an early flight home.

Then things settled down. He shot a tidy 66 on Friday and made the cut. Saturday came another 66 with nothing but pars and birdies. Sunday he rocketed up the leaderboard to claim a top-five finish with a 65. It was only his second top-five finish of the year.

The two-week stint in the UK – last week’s Scottish Open where he finished T-11 followed by the Open Championship – gave Clark a needed shot in the arm. It was a nice turnaround for a season that has included not just underwhelming results but two angry outbursts that put him a bit on the outs within the PGA Tour circles.

He kicked in the screens covering two lockers in the locker room at Oakmont Country Club after missing the cut. And at the PGA Championship he threw his driver angrily into the barrier behind a tee box.

When asked Sunday if he had anger issues, he didn’t flinch.

“I’ve had them in the past,” he said. “I’ve been pretty open about my mental shift and change to get better, and I did that in ‘23 and ’24 and then having a tough year and all the expectations and just frustration all coming together, and I did two stupid things. But one thing that it did do is wake me up and get me back into the person I know I am and the person I want to be. I hope those things don’t reflect because I don’t think they reflect on who I am, and going forward that stuff is not going to happen again.”

It’s not clear if there’s a connection, but even though he finished strong in both tournaments the last two weeks Clark seemed to be relatively invisible on TV coverage. Even as he rose this weekend up the leaderboard on Sunday the average viewer wouldn’t have known it until the very end, when he was shown putting out on 18.

Regardless, he’s hoping his performance in the UK sets the tone for the rest of the year.

“Including last week I played… six really good rounds,” he said. “I just had two kind of sour ones. But at the end of the day I played 16-under on the last three days. Excluding that first round, maybe we’d have a chance to win this thing.”

The board of Oakmont Country Club has formally banned Clark from returning to the club unless he pays for the damage, apologizes and makes a contribution to a charitable cause. Clark said he’d hoped the details of that arrangement had remained private, but said he had no issue with the demands.

“Obviously it’s a no-brainer to pay for the damages; that was a given,” he said. “Then obviously all the apologies, and I want to give back to the community because I hurt a great place in Pittsburgh, so I wanted to do anything I can to show them that what happened there was not a reflection of who I am and won’t happen again.”

When he was asked if he harbors hopes of returning to the Ryder Cup team as a captain’s pick, Clark didn’t rule it out but was blunt. “I haven’t had a good year, to be honest,” he said.