SOUTHAMPTON, NY – You’re tempted to say, “Enough already about that bad episode from last year, Wyndham Clark and Bashed Oakmont Closet.” Hear it loud and clear. Let me have my say and get out.
Clark, the 2023 US Open winner, did his stroke after missing the cut at last year’s US Open. His week was done. If he had hit the locker while still on the tour, could you have received a one-shot or even two-stroke penalty for breaching the standards of the Code of Conduct for something off the course? It will depend on each tournament’s rules and competitions committee. There is no set standard. (I would say yes.)
At the Masters in April, a different situation. Sergio Garcia went ballistic with his driver on the fairway off the second tee in the fourth round. A club official gave him a warning and a chat with him. If the club had given him a one shot penalty I would have been fine with that. He degraded the course for the rest of the field. He showed a lack of discipline. He acted like a spoiled brat at a club where, as a former Masters winner, he is an honorary member. Grow up, bro. You are 46.
Part of the standard when considering a player’s behavior is how the behavior affects others. Joaquin Niemann received a two-stroke Code of Conduct penalty for swinging a club in the second round of the US Open here. Adaptation. Not only is it a bad look, a thrown stick can also be dangerous; it’s not like you can really control where they go. In my experience, they go a lot further to the left than you might imagine. The minefield is unpleasant at approx. A pro’s move on tour can be a trigger for a spectator.
How about this? A player reprimands a volunteer marshal when the marshal cannot find the player’s ball. Give the player a shot and a lesson: Show some class, dude.
That’s really what it comes down to. Tell the class. Last year at Oakmont, a prominent USGA official, after hearing Clark beat an unguarded, ancient Oakmont locker, said, “I’d ban him from next year’s Open.” i understand You are playing at one of the most spectacular golf clubs in the world as a guestand this is your parting act? This is how this official was offended and he was not alone. It seemed to take a long time for Clark to get his public apology and private payback right, but he did. So really, let’s move on from that. None of us would want to be forever reminded of our worst day at the office, or at home for that matter.
It seems to me that this incident, this rules incident involving Clark, is much more disturbing than the closet crash. I know I’m beating a long dead horse here. I just have a hard time letting this go, it was (to my eye) thus scandalous.
Bay Hill, March 2024, third round, 18th hole, camera on it. Clark is in the third-to-last group, playing with Scottie Scheffler. He hits his maukule in the rough with the liquid, a few meters from the lake there. His ball is placed deep in it. He has, and this is a term of art, nothing. A game: hack it out.
But Clark got in there with the heavy flange of a wedge, driving after the ball four or more times. (The rulebook says you can hit that grass “lightly”—the rules want to make sure you’re not improving your lie.) As you do so, the ball—to Brandel Chambleeto me, probably others – they seemed to move. Your ball cannot move when you target it. If it does, it’s a throw and the ball goes back to where it was. This is why Jack Nicklaus was suspended – suspension is not addressing. Tournament rules officials announced and decided not to give Clark a penalty. I wasn’t the only person shocked by this.
“The ball moved clear,” Chamblee said on the Golf Channel broadcast that day. “Obviously he didn’t drop his club lightly. You start to wonder: What does a Tour player have to do to get a penalty?”
Amen, Brandel.
A few weeks later, at the Masters, I asked Clark about what happened at Bay Hill. This is what he said:
“When we finished that round, we had no idea why the officials were there. And obviously, when you look at the tape, it probably doesn’t look good. I mean, the only thing in my defense is that I’m breaking the club, I feel like I have the right and the freedom to be able to put the club where I want. I wasn’t trying to improve my lie by any means.
“But that’s definitely something I’ve talked to my caddy about. And he’s like, ‘Hey, the cameras are more on us.’ Not that I was doing anything wrong before when the cameras weren’t on us, but every little thing we do is magnified when the cameras are on you.
“So now maybe I have to be a little more conscious about not lowering the club so much. You just have to really watch what you do. You’re under a microscope. And it was unfortunate that it might have looked bad on camera. But I was laying down, regardless, and I still laid down. So I didn’t think I added to the lie in any way.
“I think that was a one-off, unique experience. But I definitely, in my mind, I’m going to say, ‘Okay, I don’t want to have any question that I’m trying to do something that’s like cheating, or something illegal.’ So I’m definitely going to be more aware of that.
“But I’ve been doing what I’ve been doing for years and nobody’s called me out on it. So I don’t know if I’ll necessarily change it. I might just be more aware and make sure that the optics also don’t look like I’m doing something wrong.”
Too many words.
When Tiger Woods would hit something and drop an f-bomb, this didn’t bother me in part because it had no effect on other players’ gameplay. It really just showed how strong he was wounded. I’m not forgiving. I just don’t think it’s that bad. When you hit a tee marker or the fairway, that’s something else. When you push the rulebook to favor you at the expense of the rest of the field, that’s something else. Then you are violating everything that the game really stands for. You are putting your needs above the rights of others. Golf is not a place for the brooding, self-absorbed, oblivious. Golf preaches consideration.
I know I’ve said this a hundred times, but these are some of the best golf sentences ever written, and it’s too bad they’re not in the rulebook like they used to be, by 2018:
“Golf is played, for the most part, without the supervision of an umpire or umpire. The game relies on the integrity of the individual to show consideration for others and to abide by the rules of the game. All players must conduct themselves in a disciplined manner, demonstrating courtesy and sportsmanship at all times, no matter how competitive the spirit of the game may be.”
There’s no reason to let Oakmont’s Wyndham Clark closet thing from 12 months ago affect your interest in roots this weekend in this 126 US Openhere in Shinnecock Hills. The Bay Hill thing? You have your opinion and I have mine.
I think if Clark had really absorbed the beauty of that preamble to the old USGA rulebook, he would have come Saturday afternoon at Bay Hill, watched the tape and said: Man, this looks bad, the pushing, the moving, all of it. Is it one shot or two?
Two.
OK then.
Michael Bamberger welcomes your comments at Michael.Bamberger@Golf.com
