Clark and other pros open up BMW week: “It’s a longer walk, that’s for sure.”

PGA Tour’s best kick off BMW Championship week

By Jim Bebbington

The hometown kid, Wyndham Clark, spoke Tuesday at the BMW Championship – the first pro at the speaker’s podium – about what he hopes to accomplish this week, and how special it is to be home.

“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,” he said.

Clark, who grew up in Highlands Ranch, burst onto the PGA Tour’s front ranks last year winning the U.S. Open and Wells Fargo Championship, and maintained that momentum early this season by winning the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-am. But for much of this season he has not won, missed several cuts, but finished with several top-10s.

A less-than-stellar opening round at the Olympics in Paris last month had some questioning whether he belonged on the U.S. team.

“I was really bummed with that first day,” he said. “But I played amazing golf. Even that back nine on that first day, I just hit it in the water and missed a couple of short putts, otherwise it probably would have been an even par or a 1-under round, and we might be talking about a bronze medal if that back nine was a little bit different. Then obviously I played great the last three days.

“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.”

Playing with focus

Clark said his recent Top-1os have come from getting back to the habit of focusing on his process, not the outcomes.

“I think I just got — just falling short of Scottie (Scheffler) 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,” he said. “Then I got away from everything that made me successful, and I feel like recently in the last 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.”

Earlier in the day Rory McIlroy was seen launching practice drives over the netting at the back of the driving range, landing them in the yards of homes across the street. They were traveling around 400 yards.

Clark said the elevation is something the pros will figure out, but the trick will be that the distances they hit will probably stay inconsistent all week.

“The tough thing with elevation is it’s not as consistent as sea level,” he said. “So if you hit your 7-iron always about 185 at sea level, it constantly goes 185. Here at altitude, now let’s call it 205. Well, it can go 205 one shot and then 210 the next shot and then 200 the next shot. There’s a little inconsistency in the thin air and altitude depending on how high you hit it.”

The course is playing at longer than 8,100 yards, the longest course in PGA Tour history.

“It’s a longer walk, I’ll tell you that,” said Patrick Cantlay after his practice round. “There’s going to be some tired caddies.”

At the end of the day Clark said most everyone will get it dialed in. He said the course is playing soft and if the afternoon rains continue to roll through players could be ‘throwing darts’ all week.

“Everyone is going to have a good idea of how far they’re hitting the clubs, but you can sometimes just hit one forever in Colorado,” he said.

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