Wyndham Clark wasn’t sure how he’d be welcomed back at Karsten Creek. Clark had left Oklahoma State’s golf program; he transferred out to Oregon and even led the Ducks to the NCAA finals.
Since Sunday, of course, anyone in golf would embrace a connection with Clark, the new U.S. Open champion. But last autumn, Clark was just a young golfer trying to make his way on the PGA Tour, and he wondered if he was persona non grata in Stillwater.
But Cowboy coach Alan Bratton reached out to Clark, inviting him to OSU’s 50th annual Pro-Am, a fundraiser that also serves as a reunion for the program’s grand tradition.
“I was like, ‘Yes!’,” Clark told OSU publicist Ryan Cameron last fall. “I have wanted to come the last few years. I just didn’t know what the atmosphere was like with me here. Once Coach opened that up, I really wanted to do it. I wanted to be back.”
Clark became just the second Cowboy to win one of golf’s four majors, joining Bob Tway, who won the PGA Championship way back in 1986.
But even before that magic weekend at the Los Angeles Country Club, OSU claimed Clark, and Clark claimed the Cowboys.
This is like Jalen Hurts, the superstar quarterback legitimately claimed by both Alabama and OU.
Clark did great things in his one season at Oregon. He was All-American, Pac-12 player of the year and the only Duck winner in Oregon’s 3-1-1 loss to the Sooners in the 2017 NCAA finals.
But Clark also did great things in his second OSU season; he was All-American, Big 12 player of the year and the only Cowboy winner in OSU’s 4-1 loss to Alabama in the 2014 NCAA finals.
Clark’s first year in Stillwater? That’s when his golfing career was saved by then-OSU coach Mike McGraw.
Grief-stricken golfer
Just before his first semester at OSU, Clark learned that his mother, Lise, was battling cancer. Clark and his mother were tight. The former Miss New Mexico introduced her 3-year-old son to golf, taking him to Cherry Hills Country Club in the Denver suburbs.
Clark’s dad eventually took over the golf mentoring, but Lise was a constant encourager, with texts and notes.
And just before Clark left for Stillwater and his freshman year, he learned his mother’s cancer had returned.
Clark became an emotional mess. Away from golf, he kept himself together. But during competition, his emotions took over. He began breaking clubs and walking off the course.
In his first fall tournament, at famed Olympia Fields outside Chicago, Clark had a five-hole meltdown, during which he was seven- or eight-over par, else he might have won the tournament. In the next event, at Jack Nicklaus’ Muirfield Village in Columbus, Ohio, Cowboy assistant coach Brian Guetz witnessed an even worse outburst and alerted McGraw that it “looked pretty unnatural,” McGraw said.
McGraw took action. He suggested Clark step away from competition. Get counseling for his grief. Clark didn’t like the advice but eventually accepted it.
“I’ll never be able to repay him,” Randall Clark, Wyndham’s father, said of McGraw. “Because he was like a second father to my son.”
McGraw, now the golf coach at Baylor, said “I just knew something about him wasn’t good. He wasn’t comfortable. It was hard to watch.”
Clark would become enraged by a shot that didn’t warrant rage.
“The golf still mattered to him, maybe mattered too much, I don’t know,” McGraw said. “There’s no way that shot would make anyone that mad. He was struggling.”
Clark eventually wrote an email to McGraw, admitting he wasn’t in the right mental place.
“But he said a lot of things that were troublesome,” McGraw said. “‘I’m a burden to the team.’ ‘I can’t handle any of this.’”
McGraw told Clark that Stillwater was the right place for him, but that the coach would help facilitate a transfer if that would help.
Either way, McGraw told Clark, “if you don’t deal with these problems, taking yourself to a new venue won’t solve anything. I think I can help you. I know I can help you … it’s time to get healthy mentally. The great golf will follow, because you are too good.”
Three times, McGraw said, Clark cleaned out his locker and prepared to go home. All three times McGraw walked him back.
Clark spent the rest of his freshman year as a redshirting practice player. He found some solace with a Christian counselor. Clark’s deportment improved and his game returned.
But that summer, on August 2, Lise Clark died of breast cancer at age 55. And 2½ weeks later, Wyndham Clark tied for ninth in the U.S. Amateur stroke play.
By then, McGraw no longer was at OSU, having been fired despite coaching the Cowboys to the 2006 NCAA championship.
Clark returned to Stillwater and was tremendous for the Cowboys. McGraw’s assistant, Bratton, had taken over as head coach. McGraw stayed in contact with Clark, with Bratton’s permission, and says there still were dark days and dark times for Clark.
In Clark’s third and fourth OSU seasons, his performance faltered. By the 2016 NCAA regional, he was not part of the Cowboys’ five-man lineup.
Clark decided he needed a fresh start. His emotions still broiled, they just didn’t flow out.
“There’s no handbook for dealing with something like that,” said Bratton said.
“He was very much a perfectionist with his golf. One of the guys who would see the good in other people’s game, but could see only his own flaws.”
Clark transferred to Oregon and had a renaissance season. Ducks coach Casey Martin became a mentor.
“I had my best year in college at Oregon, but it was mainly because I was able to go and nobody knew my past and what had happened with my mom,” Clark told Cameron, writing for okstate.com.
Clark’s pro career has been on a steady rise. He earned his PGA Tour card for the 2018 season, then finished 16th on the money list. Clark lost a playoff in the 2020 Bermuda Championship. Finally, in May, he broke through with a win in the Wells Fargo Championship in Charlotte. Then came last Sunday, when he was paired with fellow Cowboy Rickie Fowler in the final duo and outdueled Rory McIlroy for a one-shot victory.
The player who a decade earlier was breaking clubs and storming off courses was the U.S. Open champ.
Return to Karsten
When Clark drove through the gates of Karsten Creek last autumn, the memories flooded back.
“To see faces and people I haven’t seen in a while, to walk through and get the smells of the clubhouse … it was pretty surreal, but at the same time it felt like I had never left,” Clark said. “It was nice to be back.
“I graduated from Oregon, but my college time was here, all of my college memories, all of the fun times I had with my teammates and the golf, the football games and the tailgating and all of the fun stuff we did outside of golf,” Clark said. “When I think of my college experience, I definitely think of Oklahoma State.”
The Cowboys won the 2018 NCAA championship, which was played at Karsten. Clark said he got chills watching OSU win the title.
“He’s always been a big, big talent,” Bratton said. “Big heart. Plays with a lot of emotion, good and bad. Just a wonderful skill set that everybody got to see.
“Lots of people poured into him. His faith is really strong. Lots of people at home, and at OSU, whether coaches or teammates or friends, he was just easy to root for.”
Bratton said he once got a text from Clark, while he was at Oregon, upset that a particular golf team was ripping off the swinging Pistol Pete logo.
And Monday, Bratton sent Clark a photo of the wall in Karsten Creek’s clubhouse, honoring OSU alums’ greatest victories, noting that it needed an update.
Clark responded by saying how proud he was to be on that wall.
The Cowboys have a U.S. Open champion.