Play Big - The Story of U.S. Open Champion Wyndham Clark
Lise Clark introduced her son Wyndham to the game of golf when he was a young boy. As he grew up, golf was a central part of her connection with her son. As Wyndham’s love for golf grew, so did Lise’s love for golf. She always believed in Wyndham, speaking life into his love for the game, whispering encouragement. Predicting that one day he would play on the PGA tour.
As Wyndham climbed up the junior golf world, winning the Colorado State championship twice it was clear, golf was going to be an essential part of his life moving forward. He was named the state player of the year in 2011 and was being highly recruited by the nation’s best programs. He eventually pursued a college golf career at national power, Oklahoma State.
In his first year of college golf at Oklahoma State, 14 years after her first diagnosis, Lise was diagnosed with stage 4 breast cancer in 2012.
Breast cancer had always been in the backdrop of their lives. Just six months after the birth of Wyndham’s younger brother Brendan, Lise was diagnosed with cancer. But now things had intensified.
Just before the start of Wyndham’s second year at Oklahoma State, Lise passed away on August 2, 2013 at the family home in Colorado. She was 55 years old.
In the final chapter of her life she continued to speak words of life into Wyndham’s golf career. Encouraging and supporting her son all the way.
“She was so positive and such a motivator in what she did.” Clark shared with a news outlet in 2023. “When she was sick and I was in college, she told me. “Hey, play big. Play for something bigger than yourself. You have a platform to either witness or help be a role model for so many people.”
At the age of 19, Wyndham Clark was thrust into the thrawls of anger, grief, and frustration. All while continuing to pursue high performance as one of the nation’s top amateur golfers. Just two months before his mom’s passing he was a top ten finisher at the 2013 United States Amateur Open in Hattiesburg, Mississippi.
While continuing to develop as one of the nation’s best amateur golfers, Wyndham Clark was putting the pieces back together in what life would look like without his mom.
After transferring to the University of Oregon for his final years of college golf he was the Pac-12 player of the year in 2017 before turning professional.
Turning Pro
Wyndham Clark’s professional golf career was not off to a great start. Despite being the 2017 Pac-12 player of the year, top ten finisher at the 2013 United States Amateur Open, Clark’s game was not transferring well to the new level.
“When I first got out on the PGA tour, I really thought I was going to have a ton of success. PAC-12 player of the year, pro golf will be the same thing.” Clark said on Netflix’s Full Swing documentary.
But it was not the same thing.
He was missing tournament cuts, falling on the PGA ranking, and moving closer and closer to being dropped from the PGA tour. Success at one level doesn’t guarantee success at another level. As the old adage goes, “what got you here won’t keep you here.” Clark was in trouble.
When you’re competing with the best golfers in the world, there’s not a lot of margin for error. And when your entire identity, well-being and livelihood is wrapped in success on the golf course, things can spiral when you’re not playing well.
The trouble for Clark on the course, missed fairways, missed putts, bogeys and penalties was not the full story. As is often the case when performance is not going well. Performance is the downstream effect of an internal process. The hidden agenda, under the hood of our lives as our internal life relates to our external reality.
The theory goes, our external performance over time is going to be critically linked to our internal wellbeing.
Internal Wellbeing is defined as “the connection and harmony of our inner life and outer world.”
While Clark’s performance began struggling on tour, his internal process had been struggling long before.
“I trained my mind over years, of belittling myself and thinking negatively, locking myself in rooms and not coming out, drinking in excess, being mean to people, I didn’t even want to play golf.”
The pursuit of high performance can wear you down, you know.
Not being able to be at your best, feeling like you’re letting yourself and others down, prolonged periods of stress, feeling like you’re all alone, spiraling into self-criticism.
This is where Wyndham Clark found himself.
Mentally, emotionally and spiritually exhausted. A place of poor internal wellbeing.
It’s hard to sustain high performance when we’re in this spot. The foundation for sustainable success is positive internal wellbeing. We’ve got to find a way to intervene, to deal with what’s happening.
Instead, most high performers just keep hitting golf balls. We double-down on our effort. We work harder, instead of recovering smarter. We get more fixated on what we need to do to “turn this thing around.”
We begin to grip harder, hold on tighter, and look narrower than ever before. It’s the common journey of a high performer. Unless we have the support system around us to help us intervene.
For Wyndham Clark this came in the form of his caddie, John Ellis. Caddie’s do more than just carry the bag. They get a front row seat to the golfer’s performance and process. They strategize and navigate the course together. As Clark continued to spiral in a negative direction, Ellis, his former coach from the University of Oregon approached him in sort of an intervention - the most loving thing someone can do for another is to gently speak up and say “this isn’t working.”
“This Isn’t Working..”
To some degree, it’s easy to see and say “this isn’t working.” If we’re perceptive at all, the indicators of poor wellbeing can be spotted from a mile away. In fact, in our own lives we might even have the self-awareness to recognize things aren’t going well. The real wisdom is in the strategies and tactics in how to change our relationship with what’s happening.
The untrained eye can diagnose a broken arm, but the medical doctor has the knowledge to treat the injury.
What do we do when things aren’t working? For Wyndham Clark the path to progress began by working with a mental skills coach.
Clark’s caddie introduced him to Julie Elion. The stealthy force behind the success of some of the world’s top golfers.
In working with Julie Elion, Clark now had someone and something (a process) to get him in the direction he wanted to go.
Julie had this to say about Wyndham,
“He was struggling with anger toward himself. The struggle and grief of not having the career he wanted. This is digging deep and looking at yourself. It’s a lot of work. He started to feel better about himself - and that transferred to playing better golf.”
Wyndham went to work. We’ll discuss more about what the “work” looked like and how that work can be transferred into our own lives. But first let’s assess if the work was worth it?
Some time after fully engaging in the internal work with Julie things began to change for Wyndham Clark. He started to navigate his emotions better. He began to navigate the course better. His mindset began to shift and everything with his performance shifted along with it.
“Julie gave me a new mindset and a new outlook on things and made golf fun again.”
Golf became fun again. Joy is the foundation of sustainable high performance. We can only grit our teeth for so long. One of the first indicators that something is going off kilter is a loss of joy in the work and the play.
“I just don’t love it anymore.”
“It used to be fun, now it’s not fun.”
Statements like this are indicators our relationship with “the thing” has gotten out of alignment. When the joy in competing goes - something needs addressed. When the joy in suffering goes - something needs addressed.
Wyndham Clark began to address all of it.
Connecting The Dots
On May 7, 2023, Wyndham got his first PGA tour tournament win at the Wells Fargo Championship at Quail Hollow Club in Charlotte, North Carolina. Pulling away on the final day, he delivered a four-stroke victory over runner up Xander Schauffele, the #3 ranked golfer in the world at the time.
It wasn’t easy. As any tournament champion will attest there are moments where the whole thing could have fallen apart. That’s golf. Never perfect, always testing your inner resolve and your inner makeup.
“In years past I might have folded, but mentally I was pretty strong.” Clark said after the tournament.
He was connecting the dots. The alignment of his mind and body. Working synchronously. “Firing on all cylinders.” Inside out.
After getting his first PGA tournament win in early 2023 he now set his sights on one of the major tournaments. On June 15, 2023 he teed off at the 123rd United States Open at Los Angeles Country Club in California. In his pro career prior to 2023, Wyndham Clark had never finished better than 75th in a major tournament. In his previous two U.S. Opens, he had missed the cut.
But Wyndham was in a different place now. He had done some deep inner work. He stared at parts of himself he had been unwilling to face before. He began to do something about what was going on in his mind. He was connecting the dots.
And when we connect the dots internally, we have a shot at connecting the dots externally in our high performance pursuits.
After three rounds, Wyndham found himself deeply in contention heading into the final round of the U.S. Open. Having missed the cut the past two U.S. Open tournaments he entered, he was tied for the lead with 18 holes to go. With the final stretch to go, his mental skills would be put to the test more than ever before. Stay present. Stay poised. Stay connected to his process.
“Any time I think about results, I typically don’t get the results I want. And when I stay in my process and do the things I can do well, I succeed.”
Watching from behind the ropes, his mental coach Julie had this to say, “I saw him transform into someone who truly believed. What he had in his mind, was literally manifesting in real time.”
As expected, things got turbulent. After a birdie on hole 6 to take sole possession of the lead Wyndham ran into trouble on hole 8. When we’re on the edge of our abilities things will not go perfect. On the Sunday round of a major tournament, things aren’t going to go according to plan. How a golfer handles the ups and downs defines the tournament.
After hitting his approach shot into the deep rough on the edge of the green, he failed to advance the ball on his 3rd shot. A pro golfer, contending for the U.S. Open championship essentially whiffed due to the deep rough around the green.
For even the elite, this would cause the heart rate to spike. Heart rate spiking, body tensing, mind unraveling. The time for composure or combustion.
“You have defining moments in tournaments, " Wyndham said of the hole eight fiasco. “Last time I got negative after this happened. This time I’m not going to do it.”
After composing himself the best he could in the moment, Wyndham blasts his next shot past the hole. Chips onto the green and gets out of there with a bogey. Salvaging the damage. Holding things together. Accepting reality and doing the best he can in the moment.
After regrouping he’s back on the right path. Five straight pars then a birdie on hole 14. He’s not the only one navigating the ups and downs. By the final hole, he’s protecting a one-stroke lead.
After smashing his drive into the center of the fairway. He has an approach shot and two putts to go to secure his U.S. Open championship.
He sinks both putts and is the 2023 U.S. Open Champion. For now at least, the work with Julie Elion was worth it. But what was the work?
It’s the same work we all have to do if we’re going to sustain high performance. As an athlete, coach, executive leader. Maintaining internal wellbeing takes work. Here’s some of what Wyndham did to “go to work.”
Let it out - To somebody
“When my mom passed, a lot of things really fell out from beneath me and left me angered, grieving, and hurting.”
Human beings are social creatures designed for social interaction. As our world becomes more isolated we are seeing a decline in life giving relationships and an increase in loneliness. Loneliness is when the connections you need outpace the connections you have.
As we experience life, we need to explore our experiences out loud with someone. This can range from a close friend, small group of friends, a mental skills coach, spiritual director, or full on mental health professional or therapist.
The deeply challenging part about opening up to all the complex thoughts and emotions we’re feeling is that it can be risky.
What if I’m rejected? What if someone close to me doesn’t like what they’re hearing? Do I really want to voice out-loud all the ridiculous things I feel from time to time. What if it’s a deal breaker for someone? What if what I say gets me ousted from the group?
To just “talk to someone” can be harder than it sounds. This is why the professional and structured relationships of private mental skills coaches, counselors, or even licensed therapists can be so beneficial. They only relate to the person by way of the structured dynamic.
Whatever the role, part of mental and emotional flourishing is the ability to get thoughts and feelings out of our mind and into the real world. To say it out loud, sit with it and process it is vital to connect the dots of our inner reality and well-being.
Develop personal “practices”
Entering into a coaching or counseling arrangement can be beneficial in many ways. But it’s a core companion of the deep inner work we must all do on our own in our daily lives. We can move big rocks together, but we till the soil of our lives individually. For Wyndham this came in the development of many new rhythms.
Writing, journaling, breathwork exercises all become core functions of what it looked like to do the deep work. We have physical fitness training plans. If we signed up for the marathon we would train daily? We’d lift the weights. We’d run the miles. We’d do the work. Yet, when it comes to an even more complex internal reality of thoughts and emotions many high performers have no training regimen.
No writing thoughts out - processing what’s spiraling around.
No journaling and documentation of progress or cycles of the same emotional loops.
No breathwork or progressive relaxation techniques to train our heart for slowing down when we’re racing.
How can we develop the routines and rituals that help us train in the intersection of well-being?
Recognize the interconnectedness of our inner life.
One final thing the story of Wyndham Clark teaches us is that it’s really impossible to separate our personhood from our performance. We like to think we can put our lives in neat boxes. Have our personal life, have our professional life. Let it all be clean and tidy, separate from each other. “Work-life balance” as we refer to it.
A client I was working with recently told me “I think I may have been deceiving myself lately. Telling myself I’m not stressed, that I’m fine, and it’s all great when in reality my body is telling me I’m struggling.”
Our lives are interconnected. What happens in our personal lives goes with us to our high performance life. What happens in our important pursuits affects us at a personal level.
For Wyndham, the loss of his mother and the trauma of that experience at a young age, created a thinking loop that began to fear things from happening.
“Pretty much all the way up until this year, I’ve always felt and feared the bad things that were gonna happen more than believing the good things that were going to happen. But now I truly have a belief that good things are going to happen. I’m reminded of my mom saying you’re going to be someone great.”
The deeply personal experience of losing his mom was walking with him on the golf course. With him at every turn. Every round. Every time something started to go poorly, a conditioned fear response entered the scene.
We’ve got to deal with our “stuff.”
“I think better things are going to happen.” I’m in a better place mentally, emotionally and physically.
It doesn’t mean he’s hoisting trophies every weekend. This isn’t a Disney movie where the credits begin to roll. It’s just a story of what can happen when we begin to do deep internal work.
We can flourish in all circumstances. We can get better at dealing with our “stuff.” We can be at our best when it matters most.
