Wyndham Clark goes from obscurity to victory in a sizzling Wells Fargo Championship

With a name that sounds like a hotel chain and a resume that included zero PGA Tour wins in 133 previous starts, Wyndham Clark was an afterthought when he began playing in the Wells Fargo Championship on Thursday.

By Sunday, though, he had elevated himself to headliner, shooting a nearly flawless 19-under-par over four days and winning the tournament at Quail Hollow Club by four strokes over Xander Schauffele.

“I’ve dreamed about this,” Clark said, “since I was probably 6 years old.”

Clark’s 72-hole score of 265 was the lowest in the tournament’s history, besting Rory McIlroy’s 267 in 2015.

The Wells Fargo Championship isn’t a match-play event, but it may as well have been one on Sunday. Clark and Schauffele had played so well on Saturday, shooting 63 and 64, respectively, that they were three strokes clear of the field and stayed that way almost all of a sunny Sunday.

Clark began Sunday shakily, bogeying the first hole and then parring the next six in a row, several by scrambling. Schauffele, ranked No. 5 in the world compared to Clark’s No. 80, had a birdie at No. 3 and another at No. 7. The second one of those put Schauffele briefly in the lead a little after 3 p.m.

By 3:39 p.m., though, Clark was back in the lead as they made the turn, and from there he only lengthened his lead. When he took the walk up No. 18 at Quail Hollow, Clark held a comfortable five-stroke lead. He played that hole carefully, ended it with a tap-in bogey, hugged his caddie John Ellis and celebrated with the crowd, his arms aloft. Clark won $3.6 million out of the total purse of $20 million with the victory.

The key stretch came from holes 8-12, Clark picked up a stroke over Schauffele every single time. Clark went from one stroke down to four strokes up, shooting 3-4-4-4-3 while Schauffele went 4-5-5-5-4.

“I think if I could have just put a little bit of pressure down like through that mid part (of the round) where I started leaking oil,” Schauffele said, “it probably would have looked a little bit different.”

Clark had come close to winning several times in the past — he had 14 top 10s on the PGA Tour. But he had a problem playing well in final rounds when he would get too “amped up,” as he said, and kept thinking about bad shots.

In down moments, he believed he was destined to never win a PGA Tour event.

“In the past, it always seemed so tough for me on Sundays,” Clark said. “Today, I wouldn’t let my mind go in that direction. I just kept reminding myself that I can play great golf. ... And I didn’t want to be the person that I was in previous Sundays in previous years, because that person probably shoots 2- or 3-over (par) today, or even more, and loses his head and gets mad out there and doesn’t control his emotions.”

A dispassionate Clark just kept grinding through the occasional shaky shot on Sunday, though, and Schauffele couldn’t keep up.

“I’m playing really solid and just had a flat Sunday unfortunately,” Schauffele said.

A high school buddy of former Carolina Panther Christian McCaffrey — the two played in a pro-am together at the 2021 Charlotte tournament — Clark grew up in Colorado. It was his mother who first took him to the driving range, and they were always close. Clark’s mother, Lise Clark, died of breast cancer in 2013, and he thought of her several times on Sunday.

“My mom got me into golf,” Clark said. “She was always kind of my rock in my life. In junior golf, there are times when you’re so mad, and you feel like you should have done better, or you’re embarrassed with how you played, and she was always there to comfort me.”

Clark said his mother died when he was 19. About a year later, he said, he “really contemplated quitting golf.”

“I was at Oklahoma State, and I was playing terribly,” Clark said. “There were many times when I stormed off the golf course in qualifying or in a tournament and just drove as fast as I could. Didn’t know where I was going. The pressure of golf and then not having my mom there and someone that I could call was really tough for me. ... But I’m glad I stuck it out, and that I’m here now.”

Several other players have won their first tournament at Quail Hollow over the past 20 years. Some have gone onto greatness or at least very-goodness (Rory McIlroy, Max Homa, Rickie Fowler). Some haven’t been heard from much since (Anthony Kim, Derek Ernst).

On Sunday, and really throughout the week, Clark played so well he seemed like he should be in that first group. He looked like a player who belongs in big moments and final twosomes, with every part of his game clicking. He began the week as the 80th-ranked golfer in the world. He ended it at No. 31.

Golf is a funny game, though. Nothing is for sure for Clark, except this: He’s won his first PGA Tour tournament now. No matter what else happens, he’ll always have Charlotte.