How Clark battled the crowd and the course to win ...

playWyndham Clark talks 'surreal' feeling of winning his second U.S. Open (1:02) SOUTHAMPTON, N.Y. -- Wyndham Clark's winning yell nearly echoed. Across the expanse that inhabits Shinnecock Hills Golf Club, for a moment, Clark's voice was the only one that could be heard loud and clear. As Clark had walked up the 18th fairway with a one-shot lead in the U.S. Open, the crowd surrounding the green had been more preoccupied with serenading Scottie Scheffler on his birthday than they were with giving Clark a customary ovation. Even as Scheffler got up and down for par and ended his first grand slam quest four shots behind Clark, the grandstands cheered with a fervor that had been missing from Clark's shots all day. So when the final putt dropped -- a 9-inch tap-in that was preceded by an immaculate 52-foot lag -- Clark did not wait to see if he would be, at last, embraced or praised. During a day where every corner of the golf course handed him grueling challenges and those outside the ropes colored the atmosphere with hostility, Clark's emotional release in the face of the muted backdrop that staged his second major victory, carried an air of defiance. He had no choice but to be his own biggest cheerleader. "Man, they definitely didn't want me to win," Clark said. From the first tee where he led by six strokes through the final green where he won by one, the target on Clark's back was the story. The Long Island crowd saw a dartboard and did not hesitate. Fans shouted for his ball to go in bunkers, they asked him to get nervous, begged Mother Nature itself to make the wind blow harder when he stepped over his shots and then, when he faltered in any way, they cheered. When his ball would tumble off the greens, they asked for it to be farther from the hole. When Scheffler's shots found the green, they burst. When Clark's did the same, sometimes even better than the world No. 1's, all they could muster was a polite clap. On the 10th hole, Scheffler's birdie prompted a roar, but when Clark had matched with a birdie of his own, the silence was deafening. Even on the 17th green, as Clark backed off an 8-foot par putt, they jeered and when he missed it, they erupted. Wyndham Clark celebrates after winning the 2026 U.S. Open. SARAH YENESEL/EPA/Shutterstock"The crowd was tough today. I mean, New Yorkers, they are tough people," Scheffler said. "You like seeing the fans cheer for you. I think sometimes it can get a little too much when, you know, balls are kind of going off greens and you start hearing cheers. That felt a bit much to me." Through it all, Clark never appeared flustered. He was more preoccupied with managing his "ugly golf", busier with grinding through trouble than allowing the noise to occupy the space between his ears. It helped that well before he stepped onto the first tee, Clark knew the cauldron he was walking into. Him and his caddie, David Pelekoudas, had talked about it at length heading into the round and concocted a plan: every time the crowd cheered for Scheffler, they tried to pretend they were cheering for them. "It was like, let's keep this to ourselves and let's get cocky and more confident," Pelekoudas said. "I'm so proud of him because that was not easy and there were a lot of times that people weren't nice and he did so good just staying in his own process in his own mind and staying confident." Whenever a person would cheer for him, Clark would joke with Pelekoudas that there was "one person" cheering for him. All day they attempted to meet the heckling with levity, never straying from their process even as much as it surprised them that the crowd was responding to Clark's mistakes with such pleasure. "Sometimes being the underdog is nice," Clark said. "I was in '23, and I kind of did the same thing. Anytime someone said something negative to me, I replaced it with something positive ... but it's tough, man. I've played now a Presidents Cup and Ryder Cup on foreign soil, and it kind of had that atmosphere a little bit." When Clark won the 2023 U.S. Open at LACC, he was a relative unknown and as he held off the likes of Scheffler, Rory McIlroy and Rickie Fowler to win his first major, the wider golf world thought of him as a random major winner, an aberration even. Since, Clark has remained in the public eye but not always for the right reasons. Last year, he damaged a locker room at Oakmont Country Club, prompting the club to ban him. He has, in the past, had outbursts on the golf course and thrown clubs in disgust. "It's pretty rare to have fans cheer for bad shots. That was tough," Clark said. "But some of it is self deserved. I kind of brought it on myself. ... I did some things last year I really regret. I'm sorry." This week, as he grabbed the early lead and never let it go, Clark has stuck to his message, acknowledging his shortcomings while also admitting that it had been difficult for him to accept that he may not be beloved. "At that moment I just felt a lot of

How Clark battled the crowd and the course to win ...

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