It’s hard to fathom that just one calendar year ago, Wyndham Clark arrived at the Wells Fargo Championship winless in his career on the PGA Tour. After a series of failures when the trophy appeared to be there for the taking, the then-29-year-old wondered if he was destined to never win during his career.
Seven days later on May 7, his childhood dream came true by winning one of the Tour’s biggest events on one of the best stages in golf. There’s no faking it around Quail Hollow Club and in four rounds Clark validated just how great he already was and fired a warning shot to the rest of the golf world of what was still to come.
In short order, he went on to become the U.S. Open champion in June, represent Team USA at the Ryder Cup in September, shoot a course-record 60 en route to winning the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am in February and climb to No. 3 in the world. But none of that may have happened unless he achieved his long-anticipated breakthrough at Quail Hollow in Charlotte when Clark shot a final-round 3-under 68 for a four-shot victory over Xander Schauffele at the 2023 Wells Fargo Championship to earn his first career win on the PGA Tour.
Wyndham Clark salutes the gallery after putting out to win the 2023 Wells Fargo Championship at Quail Hollow Club in Charlotte. (Photo: Jim Dedmon-USA TODAY Sports)
“I’ve dreamt about this since I was probably 6 years old,” Clark said that day. “Since I’ve been on the PGA Tour, you fantasize about it all the time, and I’ve done it multiple times this year where I catch myself daydreaming about winning, and to do it at this golf course against this competition is better than I could ever have imagined.”
Clark struggled to hold back tears as he sank a bogey putt on the 18th hole to seal the win, finishing the tournament with a 72-hole aggregate of 19-under 265, the second-lowest score in relation to par in tournament history.
No one had ever doubted Clark’s talent nor his work ethic, but in order to be a champion he first had to learn to harness his emotions. Since a young age, Clark has been called a winner. That’s what his mom, Lise, who was a national sales director for Mary Kay Cosmetics before dying of breast cancer at age 54 in 2013, used to call him. Clark grew up in Colorado. It was his mother who first took him to the driving range, and they were always close. Before she passed, she told her son that she wanted him to ‘play big,’ a life motto that has stuck with him ever since.
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