Wyndham Clark stays the course, but Rory McIlroy leaves Hollywood scratching his head
Wyndham Clark holds the holds the trophy after winning the U.S. Open golf tournament at Los Angeles Country Club on Sunday, June 18, 2023, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/George Walker IV)
The potential Hollywood-style grand shootout Sunday afternoon at Los Angeles Country Club never materialised, as most of the protagonists quickly fell into the role of extras as Rory McIlroy dueled with the untested Wyndham Clark.
The grizzled Irish veteran ended up on the short side of the marquee to the U.S. Open’s unlikely leading man.
Clark, who until six weeks ago had never won on the PGA Tour, never relinquished his lead on Sunday with a gritty and determined series of critical putts, up-and-down saves and enough key birdies when he needed it to shoot even par 70 to finish 10-under and one shot ahead of a crestfallen McIlroy at LACC.
“I hit some great shots coming down at the end, and although I made a couple bogeys and it seemed like maybe the rails were coming off, I was inside pretty calm,” said the 29-year-old Clark who never finished better than 75th in six career majors.
“I'm really pleased with myself with how I performed.”
Sunday looked like it could turn into a free-for-all at the top with early finishers posting more low numbers at LACC, such as Tommy Fleetwood’s 63 that was 5 feet from another 62. But with conditions toughening and tensions increasing late in the day, most challengers peeled off quickly. Rickie Fowler was off from the jump and shot 75. Scottie Scheffler failed to launch a bid and rallied back to finish third. Dustin Johnson, Xander Schauffele and Harris English all retreated immediately and never factored.
That left it a two-man duel, meaning Clark’s star turn came at the expense of McIlroy, who endured another heart-breaking close call in an extended nine-year drought since his third and fourth major wins in 2014. Much like St. Andrews last July, McIlroy didn’t do a whole lot wrong on Sunday, but he didn’t do much right either. After nearly making eagle on the first hole and settling for birdie that grabbed a share of the lead, McIlroy stopped scoring.
“The last real two chances I've had at majors I feel like have been pretty similar performances, like St Andrews last year and then here,” McIlroy said. “Not doing a lot wrong, but I didn't make a birdie since the first hole today. Just trying to be a little more, I guess, efficient with my opportunities and my looks.
“When you're in contention going into the final round of a U.S. Open, I played the way I wanted to play. There was just a couple of shots … over the course of the round that I'd like to have back.”
Hitting fairways and greens as he has all week and putting himself in position, McIlroy missed repeated chances. Hole after hole kept passing by with pars. But it was two big misses that wrote his epitaph.
McIlroy failed to capitalize on the last two par-5s – Nos. 8 and 14. On the eighth, where he sat 40 feet short of the cup on the apron with an eagle chance, his putt came up 4 feet short and his next for birdie never touched the hole off the left.
On 14, his three-quarter gap wedge got caught by a gust of wind and knocked down into the thick grass face of the greenside bunker. He was given relief for an embedded lie, but failed to get up and down to suffer his only bogey of the day.
“That one wedge shot on 14, missed birdie putt on 8, really apart from that, I did everything else the way I wanted to,” McIlroy said of the two shots he’d like back.
Clark didn’t take advantage of the chance on McIlroy’s first miscue to extend his lead to three when he got in trouble in the barranca on 8 and needed two hacks to gouge himself out. But he made a nice bogey save getting down in two from 70 feet to stay ahead by one.
Another key pivot point came simultaneously when McIlroy just missed a 15-footer for birdie on 10 while Clark sank a 7-footer for a clutch par save on 9 when it looked for a minute like the lead might flip.
Then came the ultimately definitive 14th. After McIlroy slumped off with his bogey, Clark deftly rolled his second onto the green for an eagle chance. His tap-in birdie gave him the three-shot cushion he ultimately needed.
Back-to-back bogeys on 15 and 16 by Clark opened the door for McIlroy, but he held strong with a crisp one-and-down from 54 feet on 17 and a sterling two-putt from 60 feet on 18 to clinch and unleash a torrent of tears.
“I kind of lost my focus a little bit. It was a terrible wedge shot,” he said of the short 15th. “But honestly, after that, even the bogey on 16 … I hit some great shots coming down on 17 and 18. I felt like I kept my emotions in check as much as I could until the green on 18.”
McIlroy – who missed a decent look at birdie on 15 but couldn’t give himself good enough looks on LACC’s brutal closing stretch of par-4s – was a helpless spectator in the end.
“You don't want to wish bad on anyone, but you're really hoping for a three-putt,” he admitted. “You're hoping to somehow get into a playoff to keep giving yourself a chance. You're rooting for one guy, and that guy is yourself at that point. Yeah, I guess you're just hoping for the other guy to slip up or make a mistake or give you a glimmer of hope. Wyndham was pretty much rock solid all day, and that was a great two-putt at the last.”
It was a defining moment for Clark, who nearly quit the game a few times after the heartbreaking death of his mother from cancer when he was in college to a couple of years struggling to gain traction on the PGA Tour.
“I feel like I belong on this stage, and even two, three years ago when people didn't know who I was, I felt like I could still play and compete against the best players in the world,” Clark said. “I felt like I've shown that this year.”
It is another sour result for the 34-year-old McIlroy who keeps putting himself in position on the big stages. The Holywood man leaves Hollywood scratching his head at another one that got away on a week he did everything so well, leading the field in strokes gained off the tee and greens in regulation.
“He showed a lot of resilience in a lot of ways; it’s not like’s miles and miles away here, but just two or three mistakes and not able to happen on the greens for him over the weekend,” said Paul McGinley of McIlroy’s miss.
“He started out putting well on days one and two but certainly slowed down hugely over the weekend with the putter. It wasn’t like he was tentative. It looked like everything was running at the hole but they just wouldn’t fall. … The big mistake was the scoring holes.”
McIlroy wouldn’t argue with that assessment.
“I thought I did really well at executing my game plan, hitting a lot of fairways, hitting a lot of greens, again, what you should do at a U.S. Open,” he said. “If anything, I felt like over the last two days when the greens started to get quite crispy that my speed control was off a little bit, and I think that's the reason I didn't hole a lot of putts. …
“I can play free. I think I proved that today. Just felt like my speed control was a little off with the putter. That's probably why I didn't make a birdie since the first.”
Asked when his focus would turn to Royal Liverpool, where he won his only Open in 2014, McIlroy said “three minutes ago, I guess.”
The weariness of his disappointment narrative is evident, but McIlroy insists that the payoff is close.
“When I do finally win this next major, it's going to be really, really sweet,” he said. “I would go through 100 Sundays like this to get my hands on another major championship.”
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