CASTLE ROCK, Colo. – Wyndham Clark turned off Interstate 25 and onto Bellevue Road to work out with his trainer the other day, passing the land that used to be Mountain View Range, where he hit his first golf shots at age 3.
“It’s five skyrises. It’s kind of crazy to see that,” he said.
Some 27 years ago, his father, Randall, was away on business and so his mother, Lise, a non-golfer, strapped Clark and his siblings in the car and drove them to Mountain View with the sole purpose of getting the kids out of the house.
“She knew nothing about golf,” Clark told Golf Magazine. “She said, ‘My son wants to hit some golf balls,’ and got me a bucket. Had no clubs. They got me some. I hit one bucket and said, ‘Mom, can I hit another one?’ And it turned into, like, an hour and a half, two hours where I just sat there. It was a great reprieve for my mom. And, for me, that’s kind of when I fell in love with the game.”
Wyndham’s winding road returns to the Mile High City this week for the BMW Championship at Castle Pines Golf Club, the 30-year-old’s first start in his home state as a professional. The last time he played a tournament here? At the 2017 Pac-12 Championship in Boulder. He returns as the 2023 U.S. Open champion, a member of last year’s U.S. Ryder Cup team, represented the U.S. in the Paris Olympics, and ranked fifth in the world.
“You dream about those things, but you never really thought it could be this great,” he said. “I kind of exceeded my expectations in my own career, which is pretty amazing.”
Clark blossomed from those first buckets at Mountain View to learning the game at Family Sports Center, where he and his dad would hit balls for four and five hours at a time.
“Then I’d go do short game and play those nine holes. It’s amazing to see where I started at a kind of local muni and then go into the college ranks and being here, it’s pretty awesome,” he said.
Wyndham Clark of Team United States prepares to tee off on the 16th hole during the first round of men’s stroke play during the Paris 2024 Olympic Summer Games at Le Golf National. (Michael Madrid-USA TODAY Sports)
Growing up in Greenwood Village, the pride of Valor Christian High School skipped over a pretty significant development in his progression into one of the biggest stars in the game. When their son was 11, Clark’s parents scraped together the money to pay for a membership at Cherry Hills.
“To move to a country club where I…
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