Wyndham Clark caps off dominant week with Wells Fargo Championship win

Wyndham Clark flicked his putter head toward the cup at the par-4 12th hole at Quail Hollow Club on Sunday, his eyes tracking the ball with each successive rotation. His gaze narrowed. The putt continued to roll. Smack. Right in the middle of the hole.

Clark whisked his right hand off his putter grip and clenched his fist, thrusting it in celebration. The crowd roared. Consider the door slammed.

“I didn’t maintain the lead,” Clark said of his squirrely start to the day. “But as I started making birdies, I started to really believe that I could do this.”

Fighting off a stacked field in Charlotte this week, Clark earned his first PGA Tour victory at the Wells Fargo Championship on Sunday, carding a final round 3-under-par 68 to finish 19-under for the tournament.

Clark, 29, exudes a boyish exuberance through his youthful face that’s only partially masked by a well-manicured beard. He doesn’t panic. He stays calm, mostly. He almost seemingly forgets that he’s supposed to be nervous in the midst of his biggest result — by a mile — to date.

“Nice shot!” a female onlooker off the ninth tee box cheered as Clark clobbered a 3-wood up over the corner of the fairway and onto the right side.

“Thank you,” he said, smiling and popping up from slipping his head cover back over his club. A rare personal acknowledgment of fans from a player inside the ropes.

Yet where those nerves didn’t show on his face, Clark’s game was creaky through his opening nine. He pieced together a nervy bogey on his first hole. He followed that with a driver into the rough up the right side of the second fairway, and an approach well left of the flag that nestled in the rough between the first cut and the rope separating fans from players.

Caddie John Ellis dropped his bag and stepped behind Clark. They talked through their options on the second shot. “Take your time,” Ellis said as Clark settled behind his ball. “Give me a good breath here, huh?” Clark listened. He chipped to two-feet and tapped in for par. Crisis averted.

Ellis played the role of counsel throughout Sunday’s round. He eased the nerves that flashed through a few of Clark’s wistful early swings. He motivated when Xander Schauffele slipped into the lead, albeit only momentarily, when Schauffele’s birdie and Clark’s par at the par-5 7th flipped their names on the leaderboard.

That ease, the confidence, it came back to Clark. Schauffele? Not quite.

“When you’re trying to win on Sunday, you need to put the screws down and put some pressure on the guys leading,” Schauffele said post-round. “And I didn’t do that.”

Driving to nearly the same spot on the short par-4 8th after taking his momentary lead, Schauffele flipped his wedge to just under eight feet. Clark followed, sticking his chip inside his playing partner’s for a 3-foot, 11-inch birdie putt. Schauffele missed his putt. Clark made his. Tied up again.

“That’s when I really loosened up,” Clark said.

Game on.

Steadily Clark built the breathing room he so desperately chased throughout Sunday’s bludgeoning of the star-studded group of hunters on his tail. He birdied three of five holes between Nos. 8 and 12. Schauffele, meanwhile, matched Clark’s run with bogeys at 9 and 11 courtesy of shaky putting and wayward approaches.

Clark’s putts kept falling. And falling. And falling.

“Enjoy the win, buddy. Great tournament” a fan just off the bend around the 15-acre lake that guards the 17th green echoed toward him. Clark’s lead, which ballooned to four shots by day’s end, allowed such pleasantries.

Still, there’s nothing calming about the final three holes at Quail Hollow. The Green Mile eats up golfers and spits them out, usually over par. Winners here have played the stretch a combined 7-over since 2003.

But Clark breathed easy. He smiled. He glanced around at the crowd. Standing just off the green as Schauffele finished out his bogey at 17, Clark took a momentary look between the stadium seating around him and flashed his eyes up 18 at the scene that awaited. Fans lined either side of the fairway in droves. The gallery grew to as many as 30 people deep around the green.

Schauffele made his putt. Clark turned and began his 494-yard march to victory.

“You only can win your first tournament once,” he said. “I was really trying to soak it all in.”

There have been hints Clark, who recorded the second-lowest score in relation to par in tournament history behind only three-time champion Rory McIlroy’s 21-under 267 in 2015 when par for the course was 72, could be capable of playing with the world’s best (though anyone who suggests they knew this week’s showing was coming is either lying or needs to book the next flight to Las Vegas).

The Colorado native finished in the top 40 in 13 of his past 14 events entering the Wells Fargo Championship. His eight top 25s this year match his most in an entire season, and it’s only May. His five top 10s this year, too, are almost double his best output in a given campaign (three).

That kind of consistency builds confidence. Confidence complements ability. Mix it all together and you’ve got the cocktail that carried Clark to four-straight rounds in the 60s at a site that hosted the PGA Championship in 2017 and will do so again in 2025.

“In the past, it always seemed so tough for me on Sundays,” Clark said. “And today, I wouldn’t let my mind go in that direction. I just kept reminding myself that I can play great golf on Sundays.

“I didn’t want to be the person that I was in previous Sundays in previous years.”

Stepping off the 18th green, Clark worked his way through the fans lining his walk to the clubhouse. Thrice he put his hands over his head. His eyes welled with a few tears. The crowd roared. Clark took a few more deep breaths and kept his stride, high-fiving fans as he passed.

He reached the media center and slipped behind a table, his new trophy to his right. Clark was pleasantly introspective. He mentioned the weeks in which he’s been in contention on Sundays and fallen short. He also explained how, in the wake of his mother’s death due to breast cancer, he contemplated giving up golf entirely.

“There’s many times when I stormed off the golf course in qualifying, or in tournaments and just drove as fast as I could,” Clark said. “And I didn’t know where I was going.”

After Sunday, Clark’s destination and future seems clear — and golf is almost guaranteed to be at the center.

Wells Fargo Championship final leaderboard

1 — Wyndham Clark (-19)

2 — Xander Schauffele (-15)

T3 — Harris English (-12)

T3 — Tyrell Hatton (-12)

T5 — Tommy Fleetwood (-11)

T5 — Adam Scott (-11)

7 — Michael Kim (-10)

T8 — Denny McCarthy (-9)

T8 — K.H. Lee (-9)

T8 — Max Homa (-9)

T8 — Corey Conners (-9)

T8 — Sungjae Im (-9)

T8 — Brendon Todd (-9)