Wyndham Clark’s record Pebble Beach round is a reminder of his talent level – Beragampengetahuan

PEBBLE BEACH, Calif. — Wyndham Clark turned around in his seat and stared at the old version of himself. Up on the big screen in the media tent were three-year-old clips of Clark repeatedly smashing a club into his bag with rage in his veins. Netflix was previewing its new season of the “Full Swing” golf documentary to reporters Wednesday, and this was the first time Clark had seen it. He smiled and playfully shook his head in shame.

Clark is an open book about his journey, about his lowest moments when he found himself screaming in the car, punching walls and breaking clubs while debating giving up the sport altogether, how he found meditation and a sports psychologist and that led to his breakout 2023 season. But to look up and see both versions of Wyndham Clark side by side — the struggling, hothead journeyman and the evolving U.S. Open champ — was to properly grasp the 30-year-old player we’ll deal with going forward.

Because three days later behind the 18th green, minutes after shooting a course-record 60 to take the 54-hole lead at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am that might turn out to be a victory if expected weather ends the tournament, Clark’s first question was what was the most impressive moment of his epic round.

“Probably what was going on internally, to be honest,” he said.

The most fascinating thing about Clark isn’t merely that he’s so full of emotions. That’s common. It’s that he talks about managing those emotions the way others talk about their short game. That the way he handles nerves shouldn’t be separate from the way he reads putts. His career turned around and lept into another stratosphere when he began working with a mental coach, Dr. Julie Elion, so why should her impact be less tangible than a swing coach?

So as Clark stuck an approach shot from the fairway rough on No. 10 to three feet from the pin for yet another birdie, those nerves began to race. They sped up even more as he made a mess of the Par-3 No. 12 — hitting into the right greenside bunker, then moving to the greenside rough on the left side, trying to hit it out left-handed and spraying it 25 feet from the hole and in the rough to even have a chance at bogey.

“I think in the past I would have kind of coasted in and shot a nice 8, 9 under (after that),” Clark said. “To keep the pedal down and to stay aggressive mentally was the most impressive thing to myself.”

After he sunk the lengthy, slow rolling putt from the rough, it was fully clear.

Wyndham Clark was having the round of his life.

✅ Bunker
✅ Fried egg
✅ Left-handed shot

The best bogey you’ll see today. pic.twitter.com/bhtXOLk1I2

— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) February 3, 2024

He opened with a 38-foot putt on No. 2 for eagle. He birdied No. 4 with ease. He made a 42-foot eagle putt on No. 6. From there, he birdied his next five holes to start 10-under through 11 holes. History was at play. Then came the bogey, but he bounced back with two more birdies to reach 12-under par. Yet as he finished his round to a standing ovation around the 18th green, Clark waved with a painful, forced smile. He missed birdie on 15 by inches. After taking a (slightly controversial) drop in the rough on 16 and hitting it to 10 feet, he again missed by inches. On 17, his birdie putt stopped short right on the edge of the hole. And on his eagle putt on 18 to go below 60, he again left it just short. He wanted 59. Of course, he wanted 59. So he took the acclaim for the round of his life begrudgingly knowing it could have been that much better.

But Clark being in this position, potentially winning a signature event at Pebble, is what makes him the most confusing star golfer right now.

Because before 2023, Clark had never even been a top-100 golfer in the world, but his talent was there. He was Pac-12 golfer of the year with one of those beautiful swings everyone noticed. Then, after turning pro and those years in the wilderness, his ball striking improved. He had an impressive spring a year ago before breaking out by winning the signature event Wells Fargo Championship and the U.S. Open at Los Angeles Country Club. Those two wins, mixed with his previous few months, made him an undeniable top-10 golfer for the year and an automatic pick for the U.S. Ryder Cup team.

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But he hasn’t played well consistently He hasn’t finished top 20 in a full-field event since LACC. Since the start of May, he has just three full-field top-20 finishes. But he also has those two wins and a great week against the best of the best in Atlanta, finishing third at the Tour Championship.

If this lead turns into a win, either because of weather or Clark holding off Ludvig Åberg, Matthieu Pavon and the rest of the field here at Pebble Beach, Clark will arguably have the best three victories in all of golf over the last 12 months — two signature events and a major. Yet he’ll have maybe half the top 10s and 20s of his contemporaries at the top of the sport.

This week finalizes Clark’s shift toward becoming the sport’s new enigma. His best stuff truly is as good as almost anyone on Tour. He can stare down Rory McIlroy to win the U.S. Open. He can start a round two hours earlier than the leaders at Pebble and finish the day in the lead. On the weeks where Clark is good, he’s truly great, gaining five strokes on the field and dominating. But he can also be the raw, emotional golfer who sometimes falls off.

Maybe the greatest example of this contradiction is that Clark is the No. 10 golfer in the world in OWGR but just No. 42 on DataGolf. Essentially, his peaks place him in the elite. His everyday performance makes him part of the pack.

But this is the beauty of Clark. It’s the man on the screen smashing his bag and the one calmly saving par from bunkers to win the Open. He is the guy who didn’t show a single emotion for four rounds at LACC but burst into gasping tears once it was all over. He is the rollercoaster of extremes. Embracing it is how he got here. Why fight it?

His incredible putting performance Saturday tells the story in a vacuum. Normally a great putter, Clark has been a mess with the stick lately. He’s lost strokes on the green in each of his last four tour events and ranks 83rd this season in average distance of putts made. But Saturday, he made putts. His 189 feet, 9 inches of putts made were the most in a round at Pebble since tracking began in 2003.

A great deal of his mental work with Elion lately has been on putting. She told him, “Let’s stop having goals for putting and let’s just move on.” Take the emphasis off it.

Conversely, he had a new set of eyes on it this week. He met with Mike Kanski, a putting coach from Phil Kenyon’s staff, on Monday for the first time. The meeting was not long enough for Clark to learn Kanski’s last name, but in perhaps a sign of Clark’s eagerness for a fix, the duo removed the line from Clark’s putter and also switched him to a cross-hand grip.

It worked. It worked well.

Wyndham Clark made aggressive changes with his putter this week. (Michael Madrid / USA Today)

But while the last year was the best of Clark’s life, that success also set him up for the trickiest. Imagine being so lost you’re ready to retire, and then seemingly out of nowhere rediscovering you’re actually one of the best golfers in the world. It happened so rapidly, and suddenly his expectations were at a level he’d never actually consistently played at. So for the last few months, he slightly struggled.

“I think if you ask some people on my team they probably would have predicted it just because you do have such a great year and then we had some time off,” Clark said. “It’s kind of hard because for me it was hard to get back to present and to not be frustrated and now your expectations are through the roof.”

The part we’re still waiting to fully learn is whether this is all just a super small sample size or if it’s a template for his future. Is he really a Ryder Cup-caliber golfer or somebody who can get hot every now and then? Is he a volatile golfer who will always live on the peaks and try to survive the valleys, or were the last six months just a crucial learning step in growing into the top tier of players?

No golfer is as good as their best day or as bad as their worst. The challenge is finding your level. Clark’s level remains to be seen.

(Top photo of Wyndham Clark: Ezra Shaw / Getty Images)