SOUTHAMPTON, N.Y. — Here it is: The Moment.
The sun is setting on U.S. Open Saturday, the people are growing just a little restless, and Wyndham Clark’s ball is in hell. A U.S. 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 hit 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 miss away from a bogey that would open the door just far enough for the size 13 shoes of one Scottie Scheffler. All Clark has to do is miss.
And then, bam, Clark’s right arm is extended in front of him in a moment of quiet exhalation. He’s walking to the next tee box and writing a number 4 with his small pencil. He’s drained what feels like his 12th (but is really like his fourth) back-saving par of the afternoon … and sucked all of the air out of Shinnecock in the process.
It was an unusually quiet walk down the back nine for Wyndham Clark on U.S. Open Saturday, the same day he emerged with a six-shot 54-hole lead and a vice grip on his second major championship. Only a few dozen fans were walking along the ropes as Clark finished his journey up the 18th — a scene so unusual in the history of this famously egalitarian tournament that not even the leader could believe it.
“It was unfortunate it got a little flat,” said Clark, who leads a group of four players by six (one being Scheffler). “Sometimes it made it tough to stay really focused because it seemed like everyone was leaving, and it was like the tournament was over, and I had to keep myself really focused and in the present.”
Of course, to the throngs of fans headed toward the exits after that putt fell on the 13th — and frankly much before it too — the tournament already was over. Ever since Clark started this U.S. Open with a 64 in mostly listless golden hour conditions, he has held the tournament by the throat. On Saturday, you didn’t need to stay to the bitter end to see that reality had not changed.
“Oh my gosh,” one fan said, exasperated, when the eagle putt fell into the hole on 16 to briefly bring the lead to seven. “It’s over!”
Technically, not yet. We have seen too many of these major championships to know that a 54-hole lead means about as much as the leaderboard it’s stapled to. The tournaments are 72 holes. The U.S. Open is 72 holes on the high wire over a snake pit.
And yet, not even Clark could deny that. If you watched all 50-plus feet of par putts fall on Saturday evening, you did not leave Shinnecock with the feeling that you were witnessing the loser.
“Yeah. Scottie is the best player in the world, and he’s going to play probably really good,” Clark said. “But it’s nice to have a six-shot lead on him.”
Should Clark close things out in casual fashion on Sunday, it will be tempting to frame the win as a career-altering moment for an unusually gifted player, particularly after Clark’s high-profile locker room debacle at Oakmont a year ago. But it feels more accurate, even to the man himself, to call it for what it is: the latest extreme high of a very volatile career.
“Today was very volatile. Hopefully tomorrow it can be definitely a little more low-key, and hopefully I can play some boring golf,” Clark said. “But I don’t disagree with [the suggestion I’m a volatile player.]”
For the few dozen fans who caught all of his back nine on Saturday evening, there was something oddly charming about this side of that volatility. Clark would not be denied. He would not be stopped. He would not yield an inch of ground even as nearly everyone and everything around him seemed to be rooting for the slightest retreat.
He was, in a word, irrepressible — and that is a very difficult thing to be at a U.S. Open.
So now, here we are, on Saturday evening, preparing for — and some of us hoping for — a Moment.
The U.S. Open has not truly broken out yet, and Wyndham Clark is the reason why. That’s mighty impressive.
