Wyndham Clark’s U.S. Open win disappoints the masses
Published 10:04 am Monday, June 22, 2026
SOUTHAMPTON, N.Y. — It’s uncommon enough to be standing on the first tee with a six-shot lead at the U.S. Open, nervously preparing for one of the most consequential achievements of your life, and hear a few hundred fans sing “Happy Birthday” to the No. 1 player in the world a few feet from you. To already know that their love and adoration are centered elsewhere on a man who, statistically speaking, had quite a small chance of winning this major championship.
It’s an entirely different thing to hit your first shot, walk down the hill toward the fairway and hear the following:
Get in the bunker!
Nobody likes you!
Don’t choke, Wyndham!
It’s not exactly normal to hit a shot wide left of the second green and hear sincere applause from the grandstand. To chip it and hear “Go! Go! Go!” as the ball rolled off the green. To make a massive par save on No. 4 and hear a sound that could best be described as a collective, disappointed sigh from the gallery.
The overwhelming majority of the crowd on Sunday at Shinnecock Hills Country Club did not want Clark to win the U.S. Open. In fact, they desperately wanted him to lose. They roared for poor shots and chanted to other contenders that they wanted “Anybody but Wyndham.” This was not a Ryder Cup, where tribalism and us-against-them thinking have become (unfortunately) normalized. This is a golf tournament, where you root for players or for good shots. To see directly negative antagonism is outright bizarre.
“New York didn’t really like me,” said Clark after it was all over, chuckling with the U.S. Open trophy in his hand. “I love you guys, but I did it.”
Golf fans don’t like Wyndham Clark, for reasons both simple and nuanced.
So when Clark two-putted on the 18th green underneath a beautiful, orange Hamptons sky, the reaction could be at best described as a tepid, ambivalent shrug of applause. Good job. You earned it. We’re not going to crown you, though.
But there’s a part of these stories we often miss. The loudest cheers in that muted moment came from a crew of dozen or so friends and family. His girlfriend Emily Tanner. His siblings. His friends. His agent, coaches and support staff. They all jumped up and down and shouted with tears. They grabbed each other with hugs. His father, Randall, crept out from the other side of the green, having surprised Wyndham by taking a red-eye flight from Colorado to catch his son’s second major championship victory. It’s the first time he’s seen his son win in person.
And he saw Wyndham under siege.
“He was fighting everything,” Randall said. “He was fighting everyone. He’s all alone out there.”
Because while the world enjoyed hating Clark, these are the people who love him. Many who grew up with him and saw him rise to fame were the ones who were there when the family matriarch, Lise, lost her battle with breast cancer in 2013. They drank all night with him after that win at Los Angeles Country Club, and probably the ones who took him to the hospital the Monday after, when he tore his stomach lining, vomiting up his breakfast.
They formed a “cocoon” around him last year, in what he called “dark days,” not leaving the house as his destruction of a 121-year-old locker went viral and Oakmont Country Club publicly berated him. “At that moment, I just felt a lot of my career, world ranking, reputation, everything just dwindling,” Clark said. “That’s a terrible feeling.”
Maybe, when the majority of the world feels so sure a person sucks, it’s best to ask his people why they love him.
“I mean, he’s a really gushy guy,” Tanner said. “Like he’s just a big teddy bear and he just loves everyone and everything. I mean, there’s not one person in his life that I’ve met that hasn’t said amazing things about him since he was a little boy.”
“I’ve known him for six or seven years as a friend and caddy on tour for someone else, and he’s always been a great friend,” his caddie, David Pelekoudas, said. “He’s always generous. He always asks you how you’re doing. He talks to you on your off weeks when you’re not all out together, and I just think he really does care about other people and he takes care of everyone around him.”
“I know he’s a character-driven man and that was not a reflection of who he was,” Randall Clark said, “but he had a moment of insanity. We all make mistakes. I think he’s gone over and above to do all the right things since. So, I’m super proud.”
“It’s crazy how it’s happened,” his younger brother, Brendan, said. “We’re all sitting here like, ‘Guys, this is just a kid from Colorado who loves to play golf.’ He truly is just genuine and he loves everyone he’s close with.”
Nobody is the villain of their own story. Nobody wakes up, looks in the mirror and wants to be the worst that day. They do their best. They think they’re making the right decisions. Sometimes they mess up. Sometimes they learn.
Which is why, on Sunday, winning at one of golf’s most iconic venues, it’s difficult to capture what Clark or his people felt as he grittily battled while struggling and nearly handing away a six-shot lead. This was, by any definition, one of the best and most important days of his life. And he was made to feel like it was a bad thing.
“It sucks being the underdog or getting rooted against,” Clark said, “but I can pull through, and there’s nothing like winning kind of an away game, if you will.”
He and Pelekoudas made a game of it. When they’d hear somebody shout “Go Wyndham” or cheer for a shot, Clark would joke, “Oh, there’s somebody who likes me.” His longtime sports psychologist, Julie Elion, often tells him, “The crowd will be on your opponent’s side, but pretend they are rooting for you.”
It wasn’t exactly fun for his family, either. Tanner said it was difficult for her to see where most shots landed, so when crowds cheered for bad shots or groaned at good ones, it left her extra confused about how Clark was doing.
“Part of me wanted to get in there and say something, but there’s no point for that because I just know that the people that do know him love him,” Brendan said. “That’s really what matters. Everyone’s going to have haters in this life and people that are against you. Any great athlete will. That’s kind of what fuels him, honestly.”
And it’s difficult to deny that the crowd’s efforts partially worked. He missed greens on Nos. 2, 4, 5, 7 and 9, shooting 3 over par on the front. He lost 1.53 strokes from tee to green, according to DataGolf, the only player in the top 10 to not gain strokes.
But what Clark did do was scramble his behind off for three days straight as the masses hoped those missed approaches would cause trouble. His incredible scrambles Saturday on 10 and 11 — two of Shinnecock’s trickiest holes — were his shots of the week. On 16 on Sunday, he hit it way left off the tee, laid up to the fairway, rolled off the green on approach and still sunk a 24-foot putt from the bottom of a hill to increase his lead to two while Sam Burns made a late run.
Clark won, perhaps in part because he is specifically made for this type of environment. He’s used to not being the fan favorite. He’s used to dealing with adversity — some self-inflicted and some not — and beating against the current nonetheless. Let’s not forget this is a guy who lost his mother while in college, transferred, struggled to earn a PGA Tour card and somehow became a top-five player in the world. It’s the same reason he can screw up, upset a whole bunch of people, become a pariah and still keep going.
Clark’s best and worst moments have all come at his national open, an event identified by its grueling ability to reward your highest moments while punishing your lowest. He is, in his own strange way, the ultimate U.S. Open golfer.
Toward the end of his champion’s press conference, a reporter asked Clark if he thinks this might close the door on the locker room scandal or if he’ll lean into becoming the heel. “I’ll probably always get (the comments),” Clark said, “but I hope I don’t become the heel of the PGA Tour. I guess if I am, any press is good press, right?”
There, Clark reminded us of the situation he is in. He does not want to be hated. Not even a little. He wants to be adored and celebrated. But he’s also aware of the reality. He’s aware of why fans wanted Scheffler to win so badly. He gets why what he did was enough reason for fans not to support him.
He still wants to win, though.
“Hopefully, I can win you guys over eventually, but I get it. Grand slams only happen a few times. He’s gonna get it. He’s the best player in the world. But today is my day.”
