AUGUSTA, Ga. — There aren’t many golfers – just two in fact – who have accomplished what Wyndham Clark is about to do this week at the Masters Tournament.
In the 87 previous Masters, almost every reigning U.S. Open champion had played in April’s Masters before their U.S. Open win the previous June.
The first to break the barrier was little-known Jack Fleck, who won the 1955 U.S. Open, taking down Ben Hogan in an 18-hole playoff at the Olympic Club in San Francisco to qualify for the 1956 Masters.
The other was Orville Moody, who made his Masters debut in 1970, a whopping 54 years ago. Moody had won the 1969 U.S. Open at Champions Golf Club in Houston.
Being a Masters rookie with a U.S. Open title under his belt just shows how far Clark has come in the last past 11 months, when he’s won three times and skyrocketed up the World Golf Ranking.
Less than three months before the 2023 Masters, Clark was ranked 159th in the world. He’s now No. 4. That’s the highest ranking for a Masters rookie in history.
He’s expected to finish higher than Fleck or Moody did in their Masters debut. Fleck tied for 43rd in the 1956 Masters and Moody tied for 18th in 1970.
In fact, Clark, who was a middle-of-the-pack player for his first five years on the PGA Tour, has improved so much in the past year that his name is being thrown around as a possible winner in his Masters debut. Only three players have done that, the last being Fuzzy Zoeller in 1979.
Clark thinks it’s only a matter of time for another rookie to break through so why not him? Or of the 19 other first-timers, which includes Ludvig Aberg.
“No one thought I could win the U.S. Open being the first time in contention, so I think things are meant, you know, records or curses or whatever they are, are meant to be broken, and if it’s not me this week it could be Ludvig or someone else that does it,” Clark said. “I think the guys that are playing professional golf now have gotten so good, and I don’t think we really listen and think of those things, we just see the golf ball and put it where we want to put it and wherever, you know, the ball ends up, we go and hit it again and try to win a golf tournament regardless of where we’re at.”
Clark said winning this week “would be an amazing accomplishment. And I like my chances. I really like myself on this golf course. I feel good on a lot of tee shots and approaches, and there’s so much creativity. So I feel good coming into the week.”
Fellow Masters participant Luke List also likes Clark’s chances.
“His game is perfect for Augusta National,” List said. “Long and straight and a good putter. That’s what you’ve got to do out here.”
List calls Clark “a phenomenal talent. That’s kind of the future of the game, is the guys that are going to hit it far and be good putters. Wyndham is a great player, really nice guy, and, again, has a great career ahead of him.”
Clark has purposely cleared the deck of most of the mystique of playing in the Masters. In two pre-Masters trips, he played 36 holes on each visit. He has now played multiple practice rounds this week.
“The good thing is I came and did a couple visits here, and I wanted to try to get the awe of Augusta National kind of out of the way so that, when I showed up this week, it’s all business and I can just focus on the golf at hand,” he said. “And I’ve done that well in this last year. And so I know I’m going to have the first tee jitters when I step up on 1 and put the ball on the peg and have to hit it. But I’m really hoping that, when we get to No. 2 or 3 or 4, I’m pretty relaxed and I just get about my business and do my job.”
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As much as he knows the Masters is “golf at the end of the day” he’s discovered the magnitude of the year’s first major championship.
“I definitely think the lead-up, before I even got here, it’s amazing how just friends and family and random people I see back home in Scottsdale (Ariz.) people just saying, man, good luck at the Masters, and bringing up the Masters, where when I’m going into a regular PGA Tour event, they’re not necessarily saying that. So that’s probably the first thing.”
It took hard work, both physically and mentally, for Clark to ascend to the elite level in today’s professional golf.
He has embraced the notoriety, which included a news conference in the Augusta National’s Press Building on Tuesday.
“Peers of mine and friends of mine would be doing the pressers on Tuesdays and Wednesdays of tournaments and being talked about and all the interviews, and I’m on the range grinding all day and no one knows my name and really cares to know my name,” Clark said. “So for me it’s exciting. I like doing this stuff because it’s something I’ve worked really hard to get here to do.”
Clark is one of those Masters participants who had such high hopes of one day playing in the Masters that they vowed not to play Augusta National until they were in the tournament. As a qualifier for the 2024 Masters, Clark could play the course any time he wished after the course opened for the 2023-24 season in mid-October. His first trip came during the second week of March.
“It was a really cool trip because I went with my dad and brother,” he said. “They have never been and so we went and had an awesome kind of Clark boys trip and it was very memorable. It’s something we’ll remember for the rest of our lives.
“That’s a place I always dreamed of playing at and then to do it with my dad and brother was awesome. We were walking the first couple of holes and we were just looking at each other and saying this is so cool.”
Story originally appeared on GolfWeek
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