SPECIAL TO GOLF NEWS NET
—BY JAY FLEMMA
SOUTHAMPTON, NY – What looked like a runaway turned into a dogfight as Wyndham Clark watched his six-shot 54-hole lead at the U.S. Open shrink to just one, but then held on for dear life on the back nine to hold off a hard-charging fellow American Sam Burns. Tom Kim finished third, two shots back of Clark, while World-ranked No. 1 golfer Scottie Scheffler finished tied for fourth with J.T. Poston and Keith Mitchell, at Even Par.
This was one of the grittiest, gutsiest, most well-deserved victories, I’ve seen in the two-puys decades I’ve covered sports. I tip my cap to Wyndham Clark for his now second U.S. Open Championship in four years, and I do it for two critical reasons.
First, he got it to the house: Wire-to-wire in the U.S. Open, no ties! That is an historic feat; total dominance for three days, and then bringing it home in the clutch when he needed it most, with a list of future Hall of Famers chasing him down like we were at Belmont not Shinnecock.
What did I tell you all pre-tournament? You don’t need to play great all day. You just need to play great in the clutch.
The last person to do it since Germany’s Martin Kaymer in 2014. Including ties, it’s only happened nine times in 126 years. And look at the list of names – it reads like a Who’s Who of golf: Walter Hagen, Jim Barnes, Ben Hogan, Tony Jacklin, Tiger Woods, and Rory McIlroy. Further, among active players, only Brooks Koepka and Bryson DeChambeau have won two U.S. Opens. Clark will have a chance to go for back-to-back wins at Opens when he starts at Royal Birkdale next month at the Open Championship.
But that’s the sports writer reason why I’m happy he won. The sports fam reason. The Walt Disney-fied reason. But there’s a far more crucial reason I bow to Clark today for his magnificent triumph. Far more meaningful and far deeper.
I know what it’s like to have every man’s hand stand against me.
You do too. Don’t say you don’t. At some point in your life – some time, somewhere – you were the underdog. You were the one nobody wanted. Close your eyes, and take a moment to recall that.
Lonely feeling, isn’t it?
Now increase that 55,000-fold.
On Sunday, Wyndham Clark really was Teddy Roosevelt’s timeless and wonderfully valorous “Man in the Arena.” Because of his own mistakes in the limelight – breaking clubs and damaging lockers at major championships the last two years running – the press left a label: villain.
“Villains are good for golf. We need one, it’s been too long,” chirped one magazine writer. ESPN broadcasters made snide off-color jokes about breaking wind. Others made pig jokes, while think-piece followed think-piece about our “Wyndham Clark problem.”
Well the New York golf fans heard what was to them a clarion call to heckle Clark. All the way around. All weekend. Especially Sunday.
It got so bad that at one point, when a group of unruly fans got ejected from Shinnecock Hills, Scottie Scheffler, playing with Clark, gave a thumb’s up and applauded their removal. Do better, New York, Golf isn’t a Knicks game.
New York golf fans and the media should hang their heads in shame at the disgusting displays of partisanship.
He’s not exactly driving around on public streets on Narcos or Ambien is he?
He’s not having a kid out of wedlock, is he?
He said no to LIV’s bags of filthy riches, didn’t he?
Yes, Wyndham Clark yesterday was that jeered at, scoffed at, hated “Man in the Arena, only this time, the Man in the Arena proved victorious. He came through the fury of the fire and the flames. He faced the full venom, spittle, and bile of the mob – yes, mob, because that’s what you call “so-called golf fans” who hurl epithets and hate. They are no longer golf fans. He faced hell, fire, and brimstone, and he fought it back with grit and courage.
Driver off the tee even in the face of uncertainty with it all day, flamboyant up and downs that would have made Seve Ballesteros stand and applaud, and the courage to stand there and answer every question about Oakmont and Valhalla with honest confession and a plea for grace. That’s what everyone saw from Wyndham Clark in his grateful victory speeches and interviews. I saw a man reaching out for grace and forgiveness…forgiveness for being human in a snow globe.
That’s what life at the highest level is, at the end of the day. You can fence yourself in all you want, but you can’t fence the rest of the world out. So I ask you all:
Where is your grace, everyone? Where is your forgiveness?
Roosevelt said, “there is no effort without error and shortcoming,” in that speech. I recognize that Clark recognizes error and shortcoming. It’s time the rest of us do too. Or else be cold and bitter souls who never taste victory, nor defeat.
Some of you out there hate the guy because you’re being told to hate the guy. Media see what they want to see so they can sell papers, get clicks, have commenters, and keep their jobs. The media actually told you in print to root against the guy because villains are good for golf. But please, stop and think for a second about how stupidly wrong that is.
Really? Golf needs villains now? Marvel movies aren’t enough for some of these uber-dorks that have infested the sports world.
Put your hand down, Chuck Klosterman, I’m not talking about you!
Actually, maybe I’m wrong about that. Maybe we do need a 10,000 word essay on why Wyndham Clark is not Emperor Palpatine. It’s in a language a lot of the mainstream media’s readers would understand.
Clark, now a two-time major champion, stood there in the crucible of media and fan firestorm and asked for redemption. We’re Americans. We’re supposed to love a comeback story. That’s the fact of the matter, as a matter if fact. And if you don’t like it, there’s always the Knicks.
Wyndham Clark, I truly wish you God Speed. You want a redemption? You want a second chance? Okay fine. Now please don’t screw up again.
