When the 2023 US Open began at Los Angeles Country Club, few could have predicted the winning moments.
After all, it was the unheralded Wyndham Clark, a 120-1 outsider heading into the week, who held off the challenge of Rory McIlroy to claim his first Major championship and announce himself to the wider golfing world.
Clark had won for the first time on Tour earlier in 2023 at the Wells Fargo Championship but his best finish at a Major prior to that week was a tie for 75th in the 2021 PGA Championship.
Even the American was surprised after the win. “I wouldn’t have thought I’d be a Major champion six, seven months ago,” he later said.
So, what changed? Well, thanks to the second series of Netflix’s Full Swing, viewers can gain an insight into Clark’s work with psychologist and performance coach Julie Elion, a partnership that has evidently worked wonders for the 30-year-old.
During episode three, which focuses heavily on his journey of recovery since losing his mother in 2013, Clark said: “I had trained my mind over years of belittling myself and thinking negatively, locking myself in rooms and not coming out for a long time or drinking to excess or being mean to people. I didn’t want to play golf.”
His work with Elion, though, helped to break that cycle. Speaking after his US Open win, he said: “She has a great calmness and presence about her that just makes me calm and relaxed.
“I was a little reluctant to do it, and I’m just so glad that she was brought into my life, and what these honestly six months, it’s crazy to see how much I’ve improved and how much she’s helped me.”
Clark made his Ryder Cup debut later in the year
(Image credit: Getty Images)
The link-up was inspired by caddie John Ellis, who describes the events that led him to reach out to Elion in a scene in Full Swing.
“When you get in that pattern of negativity and ‘I stink, I suck, I’ll never make a cut again’ – all the things that I heard – it’s hard to climb out of it,” Ellis said of Clark’s mindset.
“We had a little heart to heart, I was like ’buddy you’re on the verge of not being on the PGA Tour or on the verge of being a star’ you have to make a change because you can’t keep doing this to yourself.”
Elion, meanwhile, is well-known amongst professional golfers. The American is the founder of CAPE Performance, a performance coaching practice since 1997 that has worked with several high-profile golfers, such as Phil Mickelson, as well as athletes in the NBA, NFL and MLB.
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