One Year After His First Win and Fast Rise, Wyndham Clark Heads to PGA As a Favorite

The 2023 U.S. Open champion occupies a different stratosphere in golf now.

Wyndham Clark is ranked third in the world and among the favorites for the PGA Championship at Valhalla. / Jim Dedmon/USA TODAY Sports

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Wyndham Clark couldn’t recapture the magic of a year ago in Charlotte, the place where it all came together for his first PGA Tour victory, leading to his U.S. Open win and stamping him as one of the game’s elite players.

He was seemingly out of contention from the start at Quail Hollow, something that in the past would have gotten the best of him.

“I learned a lot of ways of how to not win,” Clark said of his career to this point last year. “There was a lot of hard work and sweat and tears and anger and frustration in these four or five years leading up to winning at Quail Hollow. I've said this in many interviews winning that Quail, honestly, I think is part of the reason why I won at LACC (Los Angeles Country Club). It's against a similar field at an iconic golf course.

“And then you go to the U.S. Open last year and I found myself in a position on Saturday, Sunday and I just kind of went back to the moments I had at Quail Hollow. So I really leaned on that experience that helped me push it over the edge to win a major championship.”

Clark, 30, is a far different player as he heads to the PGA Championship in Louisville, Ky., this week. He didn’t have the tournament he wanted—a tie for 47th in the 68-player signature event—but he’ll still get to Valhalla as one of the players to watch.

Ranked third in the Official World Golf Ranking, Clark was outside of the top 160 when the 2023 season began. Prior to his win at the Wells Fargo, he was 80th.

Since winning in Charlotte, Clark added the U.S. Open and captured the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am in February. He contended at both the Arnold Palmer Invitational and the Players Championship, finishing behind eventual winner in each, Scottie Scheffler.

Given Scheffler’s dominance of late, there’s certainly no shame in that.

“Looking back and thinking of where I was a year ago, I was just showing up to Quail Hollow as not a PGA Tour winner and outside the top 50 in the world and now I’m here as a top-five player in the world and won three times including a major,” Clark said. “So it’s been a crazy year and honestly pretty surreal.”

Now the question is if Clark can be one of the players who can step up and challenge Scheffler.

He tried recently, finishing second at both Bay Hill and the Players, the latter of which where he missed a potential playoff-forcing putt that was struck a bit too hard and horseshoed out of the cup.

“What Scottie is doing is unbelievable. It's Tiger-esque,” Clark said. “He’s the best player in the world right now—there’s no doubt about it. But what’s great about it is he’s challenged all of us including myself to improve our games and to push our games to new levels. Which I think Tiger did to everyone else.

“I’m hoping I can continue to challenge him and by the end of this year or next year or two years, maybe there really is kind of a rivalry between us. I mean, there definitely isn’t anything negative between us because we do have a great friendship, but it’s more of an inside-the-ropes rivalry, which is kind of fun.”

Clark knows he needs to improve his consistency. He’s missed two cuts this year, including the Masters. He then tied for third at the RBC Heritage but had an off week at Quail Hollow.

“I think I could putt consistently better,” he said. “And then my focus, I think in tournaments, needs to be better. I look at Hilton Head a few weeks ago, I lost that tournament on Thursday. Obviously, everyone sees what happens on Sunday, but I had a bunch of easy shots I didn’t get up and down, missed a handful of putts. And that round easily could have been 3- or 4-under, which is four or five shots and now we’re in a playoff or I win by one. So, I just got to get a little better on the focus.”

This week presents another opportunity. Clark missed the cut at the PGA last year two weeks after his Wells Fargo win. It was understandable given change in his status. Now it’s even higher. And how he handles it going forward will determine if he becomes that rival to Scheffler.

What to expect from Tiger at the PGA Championship

Coming off a rough weekend at the Masters, Tiger Woods is back at the place where he made so much history. Of course, 24 years have passed since that epic 2000 PGA Championship, where Woods became the first player to win three straight majors since Ben Hogan in 1953. He did it in a playoff over Bob May after winning the U.S. Open by 15 shots at Pebble Beach and the British Open by eight shots at St. Andrews.

Circumstances are far different now. The conjecture typically centers around whether or not Woods, 48, can finish rather than compete.

But the optimistic view is that perhaps with time, Woods gets stronger. He won’t have as tough of a walk as Augusta National. If his back cooperates, he could have a better weekend than he did at the Masters, where he shot a third-round 82 and finished 60th and last among those who made the cut.

Woods was at Valhalla on Sunday, according to the PGA of America, and is likely to get in more practice on Monday. Tuesday has potential to be a bad weather day in Louisville, so it makes sense for players to make use of the first day of the week.

“I think every one of the majors he plays he’s got a better chance,” said two-time U.S. Open winner and ESPN analyst Andy North. “I think they all become easier walks for him as we get into the season. He’s played well at Valhalla. He’s got some great memories there. He’s got a lot of great shots he can up on tees and remember hitting. I think that’s really important.

“Where is his game in the last month? How much work has he been able to get in? I think that’s what it all boils down to.”

No doubt, and those are always questions without answers.

Woods has been busy, however. He went to New York City for promotional TV hits as his Sun Day Red brand product line came out May 1. He had a site visit in New Jersey for a golf course design project he is doing with MLB player Mike Trout.

And there’s the ongoing PGA Tour drama and his role on the Policy Board as a player director that undoubtedly eats into his time.

But the PGA of America posted photos of his visit to Valhalla on Wednesday and if he’s been able to see improvement and work on his game, who knows? Getting there on Sunday and preparing is not a bad sign.

Tiger Woods 🤝 Valhalla Golf Club

Back like he never left. 🏆🐅#PGAChamp pic.twitter.com/3dS8gaw1cM

— PGA Championship (@PGAChampionship) May 8, 2024

“Short game will have a huge determining factor on what he does, and hopefully he can get around physically,” North said. “This could be maybe be the first major in awhile that’s going to be warm. I think he needs warm weather as much as anybody and so many of the majors he’s played in, the weather has been awful. Obviously he doesn’t need a whole bunch of rain delays and stuff. I think it’s a lot weather determinant and it’s a lot on his short game, and I think physically he’s getting better at being able to get around every time he plays.”

The weather is a big factor for Woods, and while the temperature wasn’t an issue at the Masters, the first-round delay meant having to play 23 holes on Friday. While he made the cut easily, it’s possible that took a toll.

The forecast for Louisville suggests a good bit of rain early in the week but three of the four tournament rounds so far show no rain in the forecast, with high temperatures in the upper 70s and low 80s.

Major drama

Tuesday’s news conference with PGA of America officials including CEO Seth Waugh should make for some interesting fodder. Waugh will no doubt be questioned about his views on LIV Golf.

Two years ago, when Waugh was asked about LIV—which had yet to launch but saw the PGA Championship being played without its defending champion, Phil Mickelson, Waugh said: “I would stand by our comments last year, right, which we are big supporters of the ecosystem as it stands. We think the structure of—I don't know if it's a league—it's not a league at this point, but the league structure is somewhat flawed.”

The PGA of America gave several PGA Championship exemptions to LIV golfers, which Seth Waugh (left) will likely face questions about at Valhalla. / Bob DeChiara-USA TODAY Sports

Last year, as LIV was in full operation, and talk about LIV players not getting OWGR points was prevalent, Waugh said:

“I've been very consistent ... we don't think division is in the best interest of the game. And then when asked what do I think, as a former businessman who looks at things, I think disruption is a good thing. I think good things have happened from that.

“Certainly the players are better off in a lot of ways from what it was. I think getting to see more of the great players together more often is a good thing. I think there's more interest in the game frankly as a result of all this disruption.

“But when asked, I struggle and I have since the beginning, even before the beginning, with understanding how (LIV) is a sustainable business model. When asked, I tend to try to say what I believe. That's not being a neutral body. I think being a neutral body is always acting in the best interest of the game, and that's what we'll always do and that's what I'll always do.”

Now the PGA has seemingly gone the farthest in allowing LIV players into its field. Nine of the 16 who are entered were exempt. Seven more were given invites (it is believed to be eight and that Louis Oosthuizen turned it down). The invites went to Joaquin Niemann, Lucas Herbert, Adrian Meronk, Patrick Reed, David Puig, Dean Burmester and Talor Gooch—who is the big outlier.

Each of the other invitees could point to something they did outside of LIV Golf. Gooch not so much. He was the LIV player of the year in 2023, winning three times. But he’s dropped well down the OWGR, did little outside of LIV—but has been beating a good number of the players the PGA just invited. Will Waugh acknowledge this?

The PGA has the most latitude to invite players. It’s exemption categories are narrow, allowing for a robust invite system. To not invite Gooch when others he’d defeated often will be a bad look. So is this a change in philosophy?

The U.S. Open, which last year altered the wording of one of its qualification criteria which kept Gooch out of the tournament, has not made any other changes. Yet. CEO Mike Whan admitted at U.S. Open media day last week that he expected the current impasse in the game to be resolved by now. And in a Fairways of Life podcast, he said it will force the USGA to look closer at the situation.

“If they are separate and separate entities, then yeah I can certainly envision a pathway no different than we provide a pathway at the DP World Tour, we provide a smaller pathway at Korn Ferry,” Whan said about pathways for LIV players. “So it’s feasible for me. It’s not necessary because we don’t stop anybody from getting in and our field isn’t closed off. But I think even with that said it wouldn’t shock me if things stay kind of the way they are today and if that’s the go-forward plan, we’ll take a look at last some of our exempt categories as well.”

Both Waugh and Whan are board members of the Official World Golf Ranking. So are representatives from the Masters and British Open. That body has rejected LIV’s bid for OWGR accreditation, saying the format is a closed shop, basically. Fred Ridley all but discarded the idea of giving direct spots to LIV golfers last month at the Masters.

But they all seem to recognize that there are worth players competing on LIV and that waiting for somebody else to figure out the mess might not be the best path.