CASTLE ROCK (AP) – Wyndham Clark is feeling more pressure than usual at the BMW Championship.
Hometown events are not all that unusual on the PGA Tour – Max Homa and Collin Morikawa in Los Angeles, Xander Schauffele in San Diego – but they are rare in Clark’s hometown of Denver.
“I grew up coming to this place and always dreamt of playing this tournament,” Clark said at Castle Pines.
“When they stopped playing here, it was kind of a stab to the heart for me because it was so fun coming out and watching it. To be back here playing in front of my home crowd is pretty special.”
Clark had an unusual start in the game at a place called Mountain View Range, which since has been replaced by office buildings. He was three years old and full of energy. His father was out of town, and his mother was busy with Clark’s sister and newborn brother.
“She was like, ‘I’ve just got to get Wyndham out of the house’. So she started driving thinking she was going to go to some fun play area and then saw the golf course that was pretty close to our house.”
She pulled in, thinking it would be a distraction.
“I ended up hitting two buckets of balls for like two, three hours and just loved it,” Clark said. “I just was fascinated with hitting the golf ball.”
Clark, the United States (US) Open champion last year, had been in a summer lull until he rallied at the Olympics – partly motivated by chatter than Bryson DeChambeau should have been there instead – for a 65-65 weekend.
He shot 64 on Sunday at the TPC Southwind to tie for seventh in the PGA Tour postseason opener.
And now he finally gets a crack at Castle Pines, which last hosted the best players at The International in 2006.
“It’s amazing to see where I started at a local muni and then go into the college ranks and being here, it’s pretty awesome,” he said. “It’s always fun coming home because I can see where my roots were and keep me grounded.”
Xander Schauffele is curious why athletes in other sports are celebrated for the contracts they receive, and golf gets negative publicity when it comes to players’ earnings. Money in golf has been a big topic since the arrival of Saudi-funded LIV Golf and the PGA Tour’s response by raising purses to include 11 tournaments that pay USD20 million or more.
Scottie Scheffler leads the money list at just over USD29 million. Schauffele, a double major winner this year whose consistently high finishes rival Scheffler, is at USD17.6 million.
“If you look at how much the 10th-best player in the world has made, it’s not going to sniff how much Scottie has made. That just shows you how well Scottie has played in these big tournaments,” he said.
Shane Lowry is at number 10 with USD5.7 million.
“You look at the number one quarterback, he’s getting USD60 million and then the number 10 quarterback is getting USD52 million,” he said. “Obviously, there’s way more money in football with television and everything that’s surrounding it. It’s hard to compare the one versus one because Scottie has just been that much more elite. And I think he deserves everything that he’s getting.”
