Wyndham Clark has cleanly and swiftly navigated the crossroads of professional golf that causes the most frustration and headaches to the small group of players who face it. That of the permanent candidate to win majors who fails at the first attempt, and the second, and the third… And so, in some cases, until the end of time. Not in others.
Let’s say there are players who sooner or later get the label of serious contenders, either because they seemed made to win a Major since they were kids, or because of their outstanding evolution in the professional jungle, and that Clark, let’s be frank, had not yet reached such a category by one way or another. Not even his very recent victory at the Wells Fargo had elevated him to it, nor had Kitayama after winning the Arnold Palmer. To give us an idea: ahead of them, in the queue, was even Harris English, who had been warning precisely in previous US Opens and who was also well placed this week, up there. And that English does not even fit the profile of entering all the pools.
The very Phil Mickelson had to play 46 majors, which is said soon, before winning for the first time. What to say about Sergio García. The Kid came manufactured with two, three, four Majors to his credit, or however many. It was taken for granted. And the long road to that victory at the 2017 Masters (he played 73 Majors before obtaining it) was going to leave severe scars and a bitter flood of disappointment. “The world is not going to end if I don’t win a Major,” Sergio repeated. And he was right. In fact, Westwood never won a Major and here is the planet, spinning around the sun. But it is so hard to really assimilate it…
There are situations and situations, of course. Each thing in its time and according to an established order.
The situation of Xander Schauffele and Patrick Cantlay, for example, is beginning to become uncomfortable and leave bruises. That of Cameron Young, to whom we have all in one way or another hung the damn label, not yet. But he should be careful, despite his youth, because 2022 raised a wave of expectations that remain there, forever, in the most annoying way. Morikawa, like Clark, skipped the infernal crossroads with astonishing speed, although he was already better treated in the bets, even being a newcomer, as he was, before winning the 2020 PGA.
In the irritating club of Schauffele and Cantlay, the name of Tony Finau must be added. And probably also those of Hatton and Fleetwood and even that of Viktor Hovland, recently admitted. Each major that passes without a victory (and it is difficult to win one), will leave a mark. Or a stone in the pocket. And one does not weigh, two either, but when twenty or thirty come together the ballast becomes annoying.
Clark now enters, without warning, into two different contests. The first: that of the guy who has to confirm. It is also not an easy matter to carry. There were in their day the Webb Simpson, Graeme McDowell, Keegan Bradley, Danny Willett and even the Jason Dufner, Gary Woodland or Jimmy Walker, although these three won their first major (and only to date) a little older. The second: that of the player who, once he has won a Major, has to prove to himself, and incidentally to the rest, that he has also come to fight for a position among the top ten in the world in a more or less regular way. These are big words and in that trench there are knife fights.
The question, as you can see, is to never leave them alone, enjoying success and watching life go by. Unless one goes to LIV, of course. And now, perhaps, in the not too distant future, not even for that.
