Game Day: Wyndham Clark flips the script at the U.S. Open

Editor’s note: This is the Monday, June 19, 2023 edition of the “Game Day with Kevin Modesti” newsletter. To receive the newsletter in your inbox, sign up here.

Good morning. Wyndham Clark will never make it in Hollywood. But he had a pretty good weekend in Los Angeles. Let’s talk about the U.S. Open winner who refused to follow the script, after a look at the other sports news.

It was a good day for the Angels, who moved into second place with a win at Kansas City as Mike Trout broke out of his slump and he and Shohei Ohtani homered back to back. It was not so good for the Dodgers, who were swept by the Giants and fell to third before visiting the Angels Tuesday and Wednesday. Gio Reyna set up goals by Folarin Balogun and Chris Richards, and the United States beat Canada to capture its second straight CONCACAF Nations League championship. The Sparks fell to 0-2 on a five-game homestand and slipped below .500, giving up a late 9-0 run by Connecticut. It’s a new era at the Venice Beach basketball courts after a women’s league made its debut yesterday. And Santa Anita’s GM talked about whether the Arcadia racetrack would consider installing a synthetic surface, considered a safety measure by some.

If it had been Hollywood, Wyndham Clark would have been a supporting actor yesterday in the final round of the U.S. Open golf tournament at Los Angeles Country Club.

Clark’s championship hopes would have been killed off by the kind of minor disaster that often befalls first-time contenders in major events. He, or at least his ball, would be lost in the barranca. Or he’d succumb to pressure on the greens.

His spot on camera would have been taken by one of the stars for whom the story was prewritten: Rory McElroy, the four-time major tournament winner overdue for a fifth; Scottie Scheffler, the top-ranked male golfer in the world, going for his second major in two years, or Rickie Fowler, the Southern California hope, tied with Clark for the lead after Saturday’s round, a first major in reach.

But Clark had another story in his head. He wobbled but didn’t go down. It was the stars who found ways to lose.

After coolly getting down in two from 60 feet to make par on the 18th green, Clark, 29, had a one-stroke victory over McIlroy, with Scheffler three shots behind him third, Cameron Smith four back in fourth and Fowler in a group five back.

Golf writer Bob Buttitta’s story in this morning’s Southern California News Group papers details how Clark dodged disaster.

“On the par-5, eighth hole, his approach shot came up just short and ended up buried in a bush beside the green. Unable to see the ball, he swung and whiffed on his first shot. Keeping his composure, he knocked his next shot on the green and two-putted for bogey,” Buttitta writes. “Clark made a huge up and down out of the rough on the following hole to save par, allowing him to maintain his lead heading to the back nine.”

Clark finished with an even-par 70 and a 10-under 270 for the four days, the first man since Justin Rose in 2013 at Merion Golf Club in Pennsylvania to win the U.S. Open with a final round of par or worse.

Around the world, McIlroy’s latest near-miss was as big a story as Clark’s breakthrough.

In Southern California, many fans will remember pulling for Fowler, the Murrietta native trying to cap a career resurgence.

Columnist Mirjam Swanson tells the story of Fowler’s Sunday misadventures, which served only to cap an entertaining week. He was in contention throughout after he and Xander Schauffele shot U.S. Open-record 62s on Thursday. He finished with a U.S. Open-record 23 birdies – but also 18 bogeys.

For L.A., the venue itself is a story after the city hosted a major golf tournament for the first time since the 1995 PGA Championship at Riviera Country Club and hosted a U.S. Open for the first time since 1948 at Riviera.

Reporter Josh Gross has the reply to viewers who claimed on social media that the crowd and atmosphere at L.A. Country Club were disappointing.

But Clark is the story.

Columnist Jim Alexander explains how this happened for the Colorado native, who bounced from Oklahoma State and Oregon, had zero victories in 133 PGA Tour starts before a victory in May at the Wells Fargo Championship in North Carolina, and had never finished better than 75th in a major.

“Wyndham Clark, five weeks removed from his first PGA Tour victory, is now a major champion because he was consistent, because he held off the mental gremlins and because … well, you may not yet know a lot about him, but he is a young man with a pretty healthy belief in himself,” Alexander writes.

It took that kind of confidence to tell the McIlroys, the Schefflers and the Fowlers to get out of his camera shot, to tell the stars that he, Wyndham Clark, was ready for his closeup.

The result is a U.S. Open story that few script writers would have thought of – and might be better.

TODAY

• The Coachella Valley Firebirds trail the Hershey Bears 3-2 in the American Hockey League’s best-of-seven Calder Cup Final going into tonight’s game at Acrisure Arena in Thousand Palms, Riverside County (7 p.m., NHL Network).

BETWEEN THE LINES

In betting on Thursday’s NBA draft, France’s Victor Wembanyama is an overwhelming favorite to go No. 1 to San Antonio. On the better question of who’ll go No. 2, the pick held by Charlotte, odds favor G League point guard Scoot Henderson (-150) over Alabama forward Brandon Miller (+110). Those odds are from DraftKings, as reported by Covers.com.

280 CHARACTERS

“There’s been lots of chatter about light crowds and a diminished atmosphere at this year’s U.S. Open. The USGA tells me that the attendance numbers at Los Angeles Country Club for both Saturday and Sunday beat last year’s tournament at The Country Club in Brookline, Mass.” — Reporter Josh Gross (@yay_yee) tweeting yesterday.

1,000 WORDS

Focus on fans: Thousands of fans, who rushed to the edge of the green-side bunkers, take in the moment – with phone cameras or even their own eyes – as Wyndham Clark prepares to putt on the 18th hole in the final round of the U.S. Open yesterday at Los Angeles Country Club. Photo is by Keith Birmingham of the Pasadena Star-News and SCNG.