[Photo: Alex Slitz]
The high-profile wins keep piling up for Wyndham Clark, and so does the scrutiny about his on-course actions.
As Clark battled on the final nine of the BMW Championship, having blown a five-shot lead, with Rory McIlroy and others breathing down his neck, he arrived at a lie in the rough on Bellerive Country Club’s 14th hole. He then pulled several clubs in trying to decide what to hit, and in doing so set his blade down behind the ball. The internet posts began almost instantly, calling out Clark for possibly improving his lie by pressing down the rough. One poster counted nine different times Clark put his club down behind the ball in the long grass.
Clark went on to birdie the final three holes for a victory in the PGA Tour season’s penultimate event, and he wasn’t asked about his play on the 14th in the aftermath.
That changed overnight (Australian time), when the player, who has been dogged by rules questions, appeared at a press conference ahead of the Tour Championship at East Lake Golf Club. Asked if he was aware of the scrutiny of the final round, Clark said, “I didn’t really hear much about it. I know the shot that you’re talking about. I think any player, when they’re trying to judge a lie, takes out different clubs to see what it feels like.
“I never fully put the club down behind it,” he continued, contradicting what the broadcast seemed to show. “I don’t think anything of it. When the cameras are on you, they’re going to find anything.”
Clark, a two-time US Open winner, cited the incident in July’s Open Championship in which Bryson DeChambeau was penalised two strokes by the R&A for inadvertently improving the area around his intended swing. He also mentioned his own situations – in this year’s US Open (some questioned his practice swings in the deep rough on the ninth hole in the final round of his win) and at Bay Hill in 2024, when some viewers believed his ball moved in the rough as he addressed it. In neither case did Clark see a penalty, and he wasn’t penalised.
“It’s happened to a lot of guys where they can see stuff that maybe looks like something that maybe it’s not,” Clark said. “That lie [at Bellerive] was never bad. It was more just judging what it was. By no means did I take a bad lie and make it really good.
“People can think what they want. I know I didn’t do anything that was costing the integrity of the field. That’s all I’ve got to say about that.”
With his win last week, Clark rose to third in the FedEx Cup standings and reignited the debate over PGA Tour Player of the Year honours. He has three wins, including the major and a playoff event, while world No.1 Scottie Scheffler has two victories, one in the playoffs, and five runner-up results.