Clark hopes for 2026 turnaround

Clark seeks return to championship form with help from Cherry Hills CC pro

By Jim Bebbington

Heading into the 2026 PGA Tour season, Colorado’s Wyndham Clark has a new coach, a new driver, renewed optimism, and possibly some regrets about not taking a sweet deal from LIV golf in 2023.

Clark is coming off a down year by his standards. He won $2.9 million in 2025 and ended with just two top-five finishes. He also earned the ire of some golf fans when he kicked in his locker at Oakmont Country Club after missing the cut in the U.S. Open.

In December he described his 2025 as “An F that became an F-plus. It just was a bad year. A lot of crap happened and then I kind of salvaged it at the end. But the good thing is we’ve got next year and we’re almost done. So yeah, I’m looking forward to next year.”

He feels he began to turn the tide when he started in the fall working with a new swing coach, Pat Coyner, the director of instruction at Clark’s family course growing up, Cherry Hills Country Club.

“I was spending some time in the offseason in Colorado at Cherry Hills and he’s — he just became the new teaching pro there,” Clark said. “We started bouncing ideas off each other, kind of liked what he had to say, I started hitting it better and I said, all right, why don’t you come help me.”

He also switched to a Ping driver and he and Coyner began working on getting his swing closer to its form in 2023 when Clark won the U.S. Open.

“These are good changes for me for the long run,” Clark told the podcasting duo of Drew Stoltz, who grew up in Ft. Collins, and Colt Knost on their SiriusXM radio show Gravy and The Sleeze. “After last year and not having a coach for a little over three years it was time to finally go see somebody and get back to some good fundamentals.”

He said while his stats suffered across the board in 2025, it was all traced back to his driver. He would hit at least one ‘foul ball’ off the tee every round, he said, and the drives that did stay on-property often landed in the rough. Coming out of the hay that often led his iron stats to deteriorate, and no amount of excellence around the greens could save him.

It’s early, but his first tournament this past weekend showed hopeful signs. He was tied for third place after three rounds at The American Express. On Sunday he missed seven fairways including two drives plunked in the water, and scrambled hole after hole to come in at even par and finish T-13.

Coyner joined Cherry Hills CC in early 2025 and was recently named by Golf Magazine one of the top 100 instructors in the U.S. He said he’s going to be traveling with Clark to some of his upcoming tournaments, including the WM Phoenix Open in two weeks.

Clark has also confessed to some mixed emotions about the recent moves to briefly open up a pathway back to the tour for four top golfers who defected to LIV. He said he too was offered a sizeable amount of money to go to LIV in 2023 and turned it down.

Now Brooks Koepka, who defected to LIV, was cleared to return to the PGA Tour. His penalty: A $5 million donation to charity and foregoing the Tour’s equity payments for the next five years and the FedEx Cup bonus pool in 2026. The Tour has estimated that the equity payments alone could cost Koepka up to $50 to $80 million.

“I’m so torn, I personally really like Brooks and ultimately I think it’s really good for the PGA Tour, but it’s also a guy that had the opportunity to go to LIV…,” he told Stoltz and Knost. “It’s kind of frustrating that he’s able to get the cake and also eat it. I’m very torn because I feel I want whatever’s best for the PGA Tour. I think, if guys come back – especially top players like Brooks – it’s only going to help the tour which is ultimately going to help me.”

“I wish there were a few more repercussions but I’m glad the things they put in place are pretty decent,” he said. “I also like the hard deadline and I just really hope they stick with that and don’t waver with that in a year or two.”

Four LIV players – Koepka, Bryson DeChambeau, Jon Rahm and Cam Smith – qualified for the PGA Tour amnesty program but had to accept the deal by Feb. 2. Only Koepka took the deal at this point.

“I had the offer just over a year and a half ago,” Clark said. “If you would have told me that I could have gone for a year and a half, make a boatload of money then be able to come back and play on the Tour, I think almost everyone would have done that. It’s a little frustrating that that happened and people are now going to see what the Tour has done and then go do that anyways now: reach out to LIV and say hey I want to come and play LIV knowing you go take a bag for a year or two and you’re able to come back.”

He said he would not be surprised to see some current PGA Tour players to test if this deal works both ways.

“I think there could be guys who would have that mindset and challenge the system and come back and say you let Brooks do it why can’t I do it,” Clark said. “It will be interesting to see if anyone does that.”

Colorado AvidGolfer Magazine is the state’s leading resource for golf and the lifestyle that surrounds it, publishing eight issues annually and proudly delivering daily content via coloradoavidgolfer.com.

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