Now 61st in the FedEx, Wyndham Clark ready to put 'pretty sh---y' 2025 season behind him
Adam Schupak- Wyndham Clark described his recent season as disappointing, with his world ranking dropping from No. 7 to No. 33.
- Clark expressed regret over two widely publicized incidents of poor behavior, stating the backlash was warranted and a learning experience.
- After a period of mental struggles and swing issues, Clark has started working with a new coach to prepare for the next season.
LOS CABOS, Mexico – Wyndham Clark is ready to turn the page on a disappointing season – at least by his high standards. Asked to sum it up in one word, he opted for two. “Pretty shitty,” he said.
Clark’s world ranking has dipped from No. 7 at the end of last year to No. 33. He fell to No. 61 in the FedEx Cup Fall after missing the 36-hole cut to drop out of the Aon Next 10, which secures spots for Nos. 51-60 on the season-long points list in the first two signature events. That includes the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, where he holds the 18-hole course record of 60 and earned his most recent victory in February 2024. It's a precipitous drop for the 2023 U.S. Open champion.
But Clark’s season of turmoil mostly will be framed around two incidents where his childish behavior went viral: he lost control at the PGA Championship, throwing a club in anger that nearly struck a volunteer and was caught on video, and a photo of his demolished locker at venerable Oakmont Country Club after the second round of the U.S. Open following another missed cut.
Clark spoke candidly of how the social media backlash was tough to handle but warranted, and how he’s learned and grown from the experience.
"What happened at the U.S. Open was the kick in the face to say, 'Hey, wake up, let’s get back to who I am,'" he said.
For Clark, the year started with great promise to try to build on the successes of the past two years when he won three times, including the 2023 U.S. Open, and played on his first U.S. Ryder Cup and Presidents Cup teams. But it didn’t take long for this season to go in the wrong direction, to find himself in what he called “a bad, dark place.”
“I started spiraling a little bit mentally and my swing got off,” he said. “You’re searching for stuff, trying something different each week.”
Asked to describe what being in “a bad, dark place” meant, he said, “Golf is just tough. You’re a top-10 player in the world and you’ve got a lot of things going on and then you don’t play well and the expectations and then you feel like it’s slipping away from you. It starts affecting everything outside of golf too. It’s just not a good place to be. You don’t want to be defined by your golf. But that’s the struggle we have out here: You have a score that is put up to your name. I got to a spot where that was everything.”
It all reached a head when shortly after apologizing for his behavior at the PGA and promising he would do better, he was caught on camera doing something even more inexcusable. It was one of those life lessons he probably needed but no one ever wants to look in the mirror and take responsibility for such actions.
“I did something I regret. I brought it upon myself. Any negative press was self-induced and probably deserved,” he said. “It’s a bummer that people don’t understand the circumstances and whatnot but at the same time I had to own up to it and it was a great reminder for the rest of the year that, hey, I screwed up. I learned a lot and it got me back to who Wyndham Clark is.”
He added: “I feel like I matured a lot this year. You learn so much more in bad years than you do in good years. It’s made me really hungry for next year.”
Clark called his boorish behavior at the U.S. Open his turning point. He played well at the Travelers Championship and that continued at the Scottish Open except for a bad Sunday when he was in third place. Then he finished fourth at the British Open, and was in the trophy hunt in Memphis until stumbling on the weekend there. After the U.S. Open, he figured he was a longshot to make the U.S. Ryder Cup team but he thought he had an outside chance after playing well those two weeks in Scotland. He said he figured that if he made it to the BMW Championship, he liked his chances to be picked to Captain Keegan Bradley’s team but he failed to advance there.
“Kind of a bummer that I didn’t get picked in the sense that the golf course, especially the way it was set up, was tailor made for me,” he said.
Missing the Ryder Cup was a letdown and he's shifted his focus to setting himself up for success next season. There’s a good chance he will play at the RSM Classic, the final FedEx Cup Fall event, Nov. 20-23, to take one last stab at getting into the first two signature events for next year without needing to ask for a sponsor exemption.
After having no coach for the past few years, he sought some advice from Pat Coyner, who teaches at Cherry Hills in Denver. He provided a fresh set of eyes and helped him make some swing changes during his break. They have been working on shortening his backswing because he was getting too deep on his takeaway. Clark knows that being in the signature events would make his life a lot easier but he’s not sweating it too much.
“If not, oh well, I’ve got to play my way into them. Just have a chip on my shoulder and say, 'All right, well, I’m going to earn my way back in,'" he said.
Having a chip on his shoulder always has been a comfortable place for Clark to be.
“It’s my favorite place to be. I love it,” he said. “It’s great to be at the top and ride momentum but there’s something about grinding it out and people overlooking you and you stare them down and say, ‘I’m going to do this.’ When you do that it’s very rewarding.”
Clark said he’s going to come out both a better person and golfer for what he’s gone through this year. In that way, his 2025 reminds him a bit of 2022 when members of his inner circle conducted an intervention of sorts to try to get him in a better head space. That led to him working with sports psychologist Julie Elion and his best year of golf.
“I’ve gotten to a place where I’m excited to be playing and I can start enjoying golf again,” he said. “The great thing about having a shitty year is that I can rebound with an amazing year and it will make next year that much sweeter.”