Wyndham Clark’s terrible, awful, ok day

Clark finishes poorly, marring a good week at hometown BMW Championship

By Jim Bebbington

Wyndham Clark began the BMW Championship by working out on the driving range before his Thursday round under the watchful eye of his sports psychologist, Julie Elion.

Clark, playing in front of family and friends in his hometown for the first time in his professional career, had talked honestly for months that the pressure on him last week was going to be immense.

In addition, he had not scored well over four-day tournaments much in the past two months. His pattern recently has been opening a tournament poorly, and then roaring back to a top 10 finish with strong weekend rounds.

Before Thursday’s round he said he was focusing again on the process of hitting good shots, and letting the outcome be as it may.

This is easier said than done – as Clark has admitted many times.

This week saw friends wearing hats with ‘Dub Club’ on them roaming all over the course. Derrick White, the NBA veteran and peer of Clark’s as they grew up both in the Denver area, walked alongside him all four days of the tournament.

And his game was going well – until the 17th hole on Sunday.

The 17th hole at Castle Pines Golf Club had the reputation of being the ‘gettable’ par 5 on the course. But Clark had trouble finding the fairway. He hit right into the deep woods Friday and recovered only because of a near-miracle shot. Then he eagled it Saturday. Sunday, he was back in the woods, and it led to a double-bogey, knocking him out of the top 10.

“Obviously I really screwed up the tournament on that hole,” he said.

He finished tied for 13th place at 5-under par.

Clark played well all weekend. He was at 8-under at one point Sunday. His blow-up holes were frustrating because of how well he was otherwise striking the ball.

“I mean, I just need to score the ball better,” he said. “It’s very frustrating because my game is really good. I’m just not getting much out of it. It would be nice next week to time that correctly and start scoring on the par-5s, and when I have putts inside 10 feet, make them. I feel like I’m playing good golf, so I’m hoping I can just time it up next week.”

And in an echo to how well he has actually been doing this summer, Sunday he was announced as one of the automatic qualifiers for the U.S. team in the upcoming Presidents Cup matches against the best team from players around the world, minus Europe.

The President’s Cup will be played Sept. 24 to 29 at Royal Montreal Golf Club.