The 2023 US Open champion, who shot 30-under (254), went in front for the first time on Sunday (Monday AEST) with an eagle at the par-5 12th and twice took two-shot leads with clutch birdie putts over the final four holes.<\/p>\n
Clark finished a back-nine 28 with an approach inside three feet at the par-4 18th. His ninth birdie matched Kim’s 60 from the second round, when the 30-year-old South Korean lost a shot at 59 with a bogey at 18.<\/p>\n
Kim (65) started with a two-shot edge, but couldn’t keep up with Clark on the revamped, but still vulnerable TPC Craig Ranch.<\/p>\n
Despite the addition of bunkers and significant changes to the contour of the greens on the par-71 layout, Clark was just one shot off Scheffler’s winning score of a year ago. Scheffler’s 31-under tied the PGA Tour’s 72-hole scoring record of 253.<\/p>\n
Clark’s fifth tour victory was his first since 2024 at Pebble Beach, where he also closed with a 60.<\/p>\n
The 32-year-old had an emphatic first pump after his 45-foot birdie putt at the par-3 15th. Clark was a little more reserved, but pumping a fist nonetheless after another birdie two, this one at the No.17 stadium hole.<\/p>\n
A few minutes after Clark’s long putt at 15, Kim was a shot behind when his 44-footer on the same hole slid by the right side of the cup. The deficit was two when Kim couldn’t match Clark’s birdie at 17.<\/p>\n
Scheffler, who matched Kim’s 65 and was 25-under, was the wire-to-wire winner of his hometown event a year ago.<\/p>\n
The four-time major winner briefly was tied for the lead on Saturday, but never caught Kim – his partner in the final pairing – or Clark, one group ahead after the second hole in the final round.<\/p>\n
Jackson Suber was a career-best fourth, shooting 63 to finish 23-under, while Keith Mitchell (64) was a stroke back in fifth.<\/p>\n
Brooks Koepka, still looking for his first win since rejoining the PGA Tour from LIV Golf, shot 68, and Jordan Spieth (73), the other hometown favourite alongside Scheffler, finished 15-under.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The 2023 US Open champion, who shot 30-under (254), went in front for the first time on Sunday…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":692627,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[566],"tags":[64,63,755,85],"class_list":["post-692626","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-golf","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/692626","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=692626"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/692626\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/692627"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=692626"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=692626"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=692626"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}