CASTLE ROCK, Colorado – Wyndham Clark turned off Interstate 25 onto Bellevue Road recently to practice with his coach, passing through the land of the former Mountain View Range, where he took his first golf shot at age 3.
“There are five skyscrapers. It’s crazy to see,” he said.
About 27 years ago, his father, Randall, was away on a business trip, so his mother, Lise, who was not a golfer, strapped Clark and his siblings into the car and drove them to Mountain View with the sole purpose of getting the kids out of the house.
“She knew nothing about golf,” Clark said golf Magazine. “She said, ‘My son wants to hit some golf balls,’ and got me a bucket. Didn’t have any clubs. They got me some. I hit a bucket and said, ‘Mom, can I hit another one?’ And it turned into an hour and a half to two hours of just sitting there. It was a great relief for my mom. And for me, that’s when I fell in love with the game.”
Wyndham’s winding road leads back to the Mile High City this week for the BMW Championship at Castle Pines Golf Club, the 30-year-old’s first start in his home state as a professional. When was the last time he played a tournament here? At the 2017 Pac-12 Championship in Boulder. He returns as the 2023 U.S. Open champion, was a member of last year’s U.S. Ryder Cup team, represented the U.S. at the Paris Olympics and is ranked number five in the world.
“You dream about these things, but you never imagined it could be this great,” he said. “I’ve kind of exceeded my expectations in my own career, which is pretty amazing.”
From his first baskets in Mountain View to learning the game at the Family Sports Center, Clark thrived, where he and his father would hit balls for four to five hours at a time.
“Then I would do the short game and play those nine holes. It’s incredible to see where I started at kind of a local muni and then moved up to the college ranks and to be here, it’s pretty awesome,” he said.
Wyndham Clark of Team United States prepares to tee off on the 16th hole during the first round of men’s stroke play at the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris at Le Golf National. (Michael Madrid-USA TODAY Sports)
The pride of Valor Christian High School, who grew up in Greenwood Village, skipped a pretty significant development on his way to becoming one of the game’s biggest stars. When their son was 11, Clark’s parents scraped together the money to pay for a membership at Cherry Hills.
“Moving to a country club where I could hit unlimited golf balls was my candy store,” he said. “I didn’t have to put money in a ball machine anymore. I would say, ‘Dad, we have free balls!’ He would sigh and say, ‘Yeah, isn’t that great?'”
Cherry Hills is one of golf’s great cathedrals, where Arnold Palmer hit a birdie on the first green and overcame a six-shot deficit en route to a 65 to win the 1960 U.S. Open. Clark, who often rode his bicycle to the course with his bag on his back, remembers hitting the 300-yard par-4 downhill for the first time when he was 15, although he admits the shot would have been too short and bounced on the fringe. Now when he returns, he hits a soft, sliced 3-wood to reach the green.
“Without Cherry Hills, I don’t know if I would be here,” Clark said. “It’s surreal that I spent my childhood walking past that display in the clubhouse circa 1960 and hoping that one day I could win the U.S. Open, and I finally did.”
Along the way, he gained additional inspiration when, at age seven or eight, he attended The International, the first PGA Tour tournament he ever played in. Clark remembers sitting on the ninth green and watching the likes of David Duval, Retief Goosen and Ernie Els march down the fairway.
“That’s when I knew I wanted to do what they did,” he said. “I just imagined myself being here one day, and it’s kind of crazy. 20 years later, here I am.”
Before winning three Tour titles, he won the 2010 Colorado State Amateur, becoming the youngest tournament winner in nearly 40 years. He also won two high school championships, including a 64-64 victory his senior year by eight points. Unfortunately, the International closed in 2006 and the BMW Championship was last played in 2014 at Cherry Hills in the Rockies. Clark, then a sophomore at Oklahoma State, was there as a fan and watched his buddy, former Cowboy Morgan Hoffmann, shoot 62-63 over the weekend. But it’s been a decade since the Tour last played in Denver.
“When they stopped playing here, it was a stab in the heart for me because it was so much fun to come and watch,” he said of the end of the International at the start of the FedEx Cup era. “So this is very special to me.”
No one had to talk Clark into filming a commercial to promote the Tour’s return to his hometown, alongside Denver Broncos greats John Elway and Peyton Manning. He’s been waiting this week to play in front of family and friends who don’t normally get the chance to see him play on a course he says he loves. Plus, there’s no telling how long it will be before the Tour returns to his hometown. Clark won the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am earlier this year and enters the week as the No. 6 seed in the FedEx Cup after finishing in a tied for 7th in the first leg of the playoffs last week. When asked what it would mean to win the second leg in his hometown, he didn’t hesitate.
“It would be a dream come true,” he said. “I’ve prayed a lot about it and reminded myself that maybe I’ll be the champion.”
