{"id":868433,"date":"2026-08-26T00:24:20","date_gmt":"2026-08-26T00:24:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/868433\/"},"modified":"2026-08-26T00:24:20","modified_gmt":"2026-08-26T00:24:20","slug":"wyndham-clark-says-he-didnt-break-the-rules-in-bmw-win-people-can-think-what-they-want-australian-golf-digest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/868433\/","title":{"rendered":"Wyndham Clark says he didn&#8217;t break the rules in BMW win: &#8216;People can think what they want&#8217; \u2013 Australian Golf Digest"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">[Photo: Alex Slitz]<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The high-profile wins keep piling up for Wyndham Clark, and so does the scrutiny about his on-course actions.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">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\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Clark went on to birdie the final three holes for a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.australiangolfdigest.com.au\/not-so-fast-wyndham-clark-bmw-victory-means-scottie-scheffler-has-company-in-poy-race\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">victory<\/a> in the PGA Tour season\u2019s penultimate event, and he wasn\u2019t asked about his play on the 14th in the aftermath.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">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, \u201cI didn\u2019t really hear much about it. I know the shot that you\u2019re talking about. I think any player, when they\u2019re trying to judge a lie, takes out different clubs to see what it feels like.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cI never fully put the club down behind it,\u201d he continued, contradicting what the broadcast seemed to show. \u201cI don\u2019t think anything of it. When the cameras are on you, they\u2019re going to find anything.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Clark, a two-time US Open winner, cited the incident in July\u2019s Open Championship in which <a href=\"https:\/\/www.australiangolfdigest.com.au\/british-open-2026-bryson-dechambeau-furious-ruling\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Bryson DeChambeau was penalised<\/a> two strokes by the R&amp;A for inadvertently improving the area around his intended swing. He also mentioned his own situations \u2013 in this year\u2019s 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\u2019t penalised.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cIt\u2019s happened to a lot of guys where they can see stuff that maybe looks like something that maybe it\u2019s not,\u201d Clark said. \u201cThat 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.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cPeople can think what they want. I know I didn\u2019t do anything that was costing the integrity of the field. That\u2019s all I\u2019ve got to say about that.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"[Photo: Alex Slitz] The high-profile wins keep piling up for Wyndham Clark, and so does the scrutiny about&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":868434,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[566],"tags":[4225,64,63,437207,32034,755,138747,44,1747,28432,212302,85,6959],"class_list":["post-868433","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-article","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-bellerive-country-club","tag-bmw-championship","tag-golf","tag-golf-digest","tag-news","tag-pga-tour","tag-rough","tag-rules-of-golf","tag-sports","tag-wyndham-clark"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/868433","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=868433"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/868433\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/868434"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=868433"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=868433"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=868433"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}