SOUTHAMPTON, NY – Here it is: The moment.
The sun is setting US Open on Saturdaypeople are getting a little restless, and Wyndham Clark’s ball is in hell A US Open is in our midst. It’s touching our fingertips. We can feel it.
Clark has a 15-footer for par here on the 13th. He hits his approach high and soft and straight into a bunker. And then hit his bunker shot to 15 feet. And now he’s a low-percentage loss away from a bat that would open the door only far enough for shoe size 13 of a Scottie Scheffler. All Clark has to do is lose.
And then, bamClark’s right arm is stretched out in front of him in a moment of calm exhalation. He is walking to the next box and writes a number 4 with his little pencil. He’s drained what feels like his 12th (but is really like his fourth) save of the afternoon … and sucked all the air out of Shinnecock in the process.
It was a remarkably smooth outing down the back nine for Wyndham Clark at the US Open on Saturday, the same day he came away with a 54 hole six shot bullet and one under in his second major championship. Only a few dozen fans were walking along the ropes as Clark completed his journey to the 18th – a scene so unusual in the history of this famous egalitarian tournament that even the leader could not believe it.
“It was unfortunate that it got a little flat,” said Clark, who leads a group of four players out of six (Scheffler is one). “Sometimes it made it hard to stay really focused because it seemed like everyone was leaving and it was like the tournament was over and I had to stay really focused and in the present.”
Of course, for the throngs of fans headed for the exits after that putt fell on the 13th – and frankly much earlier – the tournament already it Was long. Since Clark started this US Open with a 64 in mostly uncomfortable golden hour conditions, he has had the tournament by its throat. On Saturday, you didn’t have to stay until the end to see that reality hadn’t changed.
“Oh my Providencesaid one exasperated fan as his eagle putt landed on the 16th hole to briefly cut the lead to seven. “It’s over!”
Technically, not yet. We’ve seen enough of these major championships to know that a 54-hole bullet means as much as the leaderboard it’s attached to. The tournament is 72 holes. The US Open is 72 holes on the high wire over a snake hole.
And yet, even Clark couldn’t deny it. If you watched all 50-plus feet of high-profile shots go down Saturday night, you didn’t leave Shinnecock feeling like you witnessed a loser.
“Yeah. Scottie is the best player in the world, and he’s going to play probably very well,” Clark said. “But it’s nice to have a six-shot lead against him.”
If Clark closes things out on Sunday, it will be tempting to chalk up the win as a career-changing moment for a supremely talented player, especially after Clark’s high-profile locker room debate at Oakmont a year ago. But it’s more accurate, even for the man himself, to call it what it is: the extreme last peak of a very volatile career.
“Today was very inconsistent. Hopefully tomorrow it can definitely be a little bit lower and hopefully I can play some boring golf,” Clark said. “But I don’t agree with (the suggestion that I’m an inconsistent player.)”
For the several dozen fans who caught the entire back nine on Saturday night, there was something strangely endearing about THIS side of that volatility. Clark would not be denied. He would not be stopped. He wouldn’t give an inch of ground even though almost everyone and everything around him seemed to be begging for the slightest pull.
He was, in a word, irresistible – and that’s a very difficult thing to be at a US Open.
So now, here we are, Saturday night, preparing for – and some of us hoping for – a Moment.
The US Open hasn’t exploded yet, and Wyndham Clark is the reason why. This is very impressive.
