The Gamers: Wyndham Clark fights again with “huge” bogey on 17

Wyndham Clark awoke Saturday morning with a four-shot lead at The Gamers.

The reigning U.S. Open champion waltzed his means round TPC Sawgrass for 2 days, carding rounds of 65s to grab management of the championship.

However he didn’t have the identical command on Saturday, as he noticed his lead evaporate by the point he walked off the par-4 twelfth. Clark’s enjoying associate, Xander Schauffele, had simply made his sixth birdie of the day to get to 16-under to match him.

4 holes later, this pairing sat deadlocked at 17-under, with probably the most well-known par-3s on the earth awaiting them.

Clark stepped as much as the tee with a sand wedge and struck probably the most nerve-wracking shot in all of golf. It landed 20 yards in need of the inexperienced, creating a large splash.

“He was over that shot for means longer than some other shot right this moment,” NBC reporter John Wooden—a former PGA Tour caddy—mentioned on the telecast.

“It was like he was virtually frozen over it.”

He hit it solely 102 yards on the 124-yard par-3, a huge miss for a participant of his caliber. However Clark determined to re-tee as an alternative of going to the drop zone to the left.

“Happily, I went first, and I had a while to consider it,” Clark mentioned of his chunk on 17.

“I requested my caddie John [Ellis], and he mentioned, ‘[drop zone is] simply too shut for us to have the ability to hit it.’ So, the simpler shot was simply redoing it. We had membership. Truthfully, I made a nasty swing and chunked it, and if we went nearer, I feel it made it a more durable shot.”

Clark selected properly as a result of his do-over landed six-and-a-half toes from the cup.

He then drained it for a bogey-four, which elicited a fist pump.

“[That was] huge. It’s unlucky on a gap that’s so iconic and has a bunch of bother to have type of your worst swing of the day. However yeah, I adopted it with an amazing swing and an amazing putt,” Clark defined.

“I’m within the ultimate group tomorrow, which is large. I’m hoping that’s an enormous level within the match and we glance again after [Sunday] and have a look at that gap and say, hey, that was perhaps the shot and the putt that meant all of it.”

Clark missed loads of putts on Saturday. Quick misses on the eighth and ninth instantly come to thoughts.

“Generally you’ll be able to press and attempt to power the difficulty, and I believed I did an incredible job,” Clark added.

“If I had made the par putt on 8 and the birdie putt on 9, it might have been a completely completely different spherical. I could possibly be at 19 or 20 [under], and we’d be having a distinct dialog.”

Clark had have a look at birdie from 10 toes on the 14th, however that missed on the low aspect, too.

But Clark bounced again together with his 6-footer on 17. If he had missed that, he would have misplaced all momentum going into Sunday’s ultimate spherical.

Photograph by James Gilbert/PGA Tour by way of Getty Photographs

As a substitute, he dropped just one shot, and now enters the ultimate 18 holes trailing Schauffele by a shot at 16-under.

“I feel everybody type of has one spherical the place they’ve to actually grind it out and make these par putts and bogey putts or no matter it’s,” Clark mentioned.

“I felt like that was right this moment. I’m hoping I’ll get up laser locked-in and targeted, have an superior spherical, and hopefully have an amazing end right here.”

Nonetheless, Clark appears like he performed good golf, and he did so. A 2-under 70 is a good spherical at TPC Sawgrass, particularly when everyone seems to be chasing you down.

However now he has to search out Schauffele on Sunday, and contemplating Clark has gained thrice prior to now 9 months, he has all of the expertise on the earth to take action.

Jack Milko is a golf workers author for SB Nation’s Taking part in By way of. Make sure you try @_PlayingThrough for extra golf protection. You may observe him on Twitter @jack_milko as effectively.