Wyndham Clark wins the U.S. Open, withstanding fan heckling and a Sam Burns rally

SOUTHAMPTON, N.Y. – It was never going to be easy. Shinnecock Hills would never allow it. Nor would the gods, nor the New York fans.

Wyndham Clark entered Sunday with a six-shot lead in the 126th U.S. Open – a number notable for both its certainty and its infamy. No one loses a six-shot lead. Well, no one except Greg Norman. Everyone of a certain age remembers Augusta in ’96, right? But otherwise, a six-shot lead is safe to sleep on. Entering Sunday, others holding such an advantage had won 20 of 20 times.

Makes you wonder how Wyndham Clark slept Saturday night.

The 32-year-old arrived at Shinnecock on Sunday at 7-under for the tournament. His closest competition: Four players at 1-under and four more at par.

The question was whether Clark’s second U.S. Open title would come smoothly.

The answer, resoundingly, was no.

Clark, who made his name with his 2023 U.S. Open victory at Los Angeles Country Club, would have to stare down fans cheering against him, a charging Sam Burns, a final pairing alongside Scottie Scheffler, and the agony of bleeding out one bogey after another. Clark, to his credit, found a way. A final-round 73 proved enough for a one-shot victory over Burns.

Clark’s lead shrank to as little as one shot – an advantage he held for much of Sunday afternoon – but never vanished. With Burns on Shinnecock’s driving range after posting a final-round 67 and a 3-under final score, a defiant birdie on the par-5 16th pushed Clark’s lead back to two shots and gave him the breathing room he’d need after a three-putt bogey on the next hole.

The win came despite fans shouting for his shots to find bunkers and roll into the rough, and maybe some greater forces seeking vengeance for what occurred a year ago this week.

See, Clark’s win at Shinnecock does not come without some central complications. Shadows follow the man, most notably a hissy fit thrown at last year’s U.S. Open. Two years after his breakthrough U.S. Open win, Clark missed the cut at Oakmont and took out his frustration by caving in the front paneling of two 121-year-old lockers with a few violent kicks.

The lockers were repaired this past winter.

Clark’s reputation has taken longer.

After first going dark following the incident, Clark has offered plenty of apologies in hopes of getting back in the game’s good graces. The latest came this week.

“It sucks being the underdog or getting rooted against, but I can pull through,” Clark said of the near-constant heckling. “There’s nothing like winning kind of an away game, if you will.”

For all of Clark’s massaging of Oakmont and his low favorability ratings, nothing will silence critics like Sunday’s final image.

Hoisting a trophy over the Hamptons.

Of all the variables at play this week, the tournament offered one obvious opportunity for scoring conditions – the late-day window on a serene Thursday afternoon.

With the wind down and greens as receptive as they’ll ever be for an Open at Shinnecock, scoring averages were a full shot-and-a-half lower for the afternoon wave than for the morning tee times. About half the tournament field had an opportunity to take advantage.

Clark never saw it coming. When he first heard his tee time on Tuesday, he thought Thursday afternoon would be the toughest draw. Instead, the day played out like a Long Island postcard. Morning fog prompted a two-hour delay, pushing back tee times, and gave way to winds that gusted early before laying down over the course of the day.

By the time Clark teed off Thursday, treetops sat still and flags hung like drapes. Following a bogey on No. 2, he reeled off birdies on Nos. 3 and 4 and tapped in a 3-foot eagle on the par-5 fifth.

Little did anyone know that would be the difference in the end.

Clark led by two shots at the end of Round 1, by four shots at the end of Round 2, and by six after Round 3.

On Sunday, it seemed that if anyone would challenge for the lead, it would be Scheffler, the world No. 1, playing in the final group alongside Clark. Scheffler turned 30 on Sunday, and he’s missing only the U.S. Open for a career Grand Slam.

Instead, it was Burns, the 29-year-old from Louisiana seeking his first major championship. Burns started the day at par but birdied the first hole … and the third … then the fifth … and the eighth. He got to 4-under, dropped back with a pair of bogeys in Shinnecock’s most fearsome stretch of holes, and then rediscovered his groove with a birdie on No. 16 to get to 3-under.

Known as one of the better putters in the game, Burns missed birdie putts on the 17th and 18th holes, the latter causing him to drop to his knees in anguish.

Those were the putts Clark relied on all week. He scrambled his way around Shinnecock with one nervy par putt after another. He blinked on No. 17 on Sunday, pushing an eight-and-a-half-footer wide right, but held his one-shot lead on 18 with a two-putt from 53 feet.

Clark entered this week ranked 62nd on the PGA Tour in strokes gained putting and 94th in strokes gained off the tee. At Shinnecock, he ranked fourth in putting and 14th off the tee. He got up and down for 16 pars on 24 missed greens. That’s how you win a U.S. Open.

Maybe there’s something about the U.S. Open that brings out Clark’s best. Or maybe this was just the culmination of his game trending in the right direction of late. Or maybe it’s William Flynn – the classic course architect who not only designed Shinnecock, but also Cherry Hills Country Club, the course Clark grew up playing as a kid.

“Coming into this, I really did have the feeling I could win,” Clark said.

After his tap-in on 18 fell, Clark was greeted by a stream of friends and family ducking under the ropes onto the 18th green. He then turned to find his father, Randall, who traveled to Long Island on Sunday to surprise his son. Their Father’s Day embrace was a long time coming. Clark’s mother, Lise, died in 2013 after a battle with breast cancer. Clark has long cited her death at age 55 as carving the contours for a career that took a longer road than he planned, following an All-American college career at Oklahoma State. Clark was 29 and 134 starts on the PGA Tour before earning his first win.

“I’m not getting angry as much as I used to,” Clark said. “I think I get frustrated. My anger has kind of gone away, which is a huge blessing. I’d say the frustration is kind of obviously there. Anyone gets it in golf.”

Before winning at LACC, Clark’s career major record was about as pedestrian as possible, with four missed cuts and two finishes of T75 and T76. Since the win at LACC, it hasn’t been much different: five missed cuts, finishes of T33, T46, T50, T56 and an outlying T4 at last year’s Open Championship at Portrush.

And yet, Clark is a certified winner. Since his debut victory at age 29 at the 2023 Wells Fargo Championship, he has captured a pair of U.S. Opens and victories at the 2024 Pebble Beach Pro-Am and this year’s CJ Cup.

Clark’s five wins since May 2023 trail only Scottie Scheffler (14) and Rory McIlroy (7). Not bad company.

And in Clark’s lifetime (born in 1993), the only other players to win two or more U.S. Opens are Tiger Woods (3), Lee Janzen, Payne Stewart, Retief Goosen, Brooks Koepka and Bryson DeChambeau. Also not bad company.