Wyndham Clark claimed victory at the BMW Championship, but what a ride to get there! His five-shot lead melted away until Rory McIlroy took his breath away on Sunday, and the drama unfolded.
It wasn't the first time Clark had won this nerve-wracking game. Already this summer, at his US Open title, he had to defend a massive lead on the final day tooth and nail – history repeated itself at the penultimate event of the PGA Tour's FedEx Cup playoffs.
After playing hesitantly all day, Clark carded his first birdie on the 16th, immediately followed by another on the 17th. Relief was palpable when his playing partner McIlroy stumbled into a bogey on the 17th after visiting two bunkers. Clark sealed the deal with a 17-foot putt for his third consecutive birdie. A superb round of 70 strokes brought him to a total of 17-under par.
"It was weird. I wasn't actually nervous, more like a bit out of sync and just made stupid bogeys," Clark said after his triumph. "As much as I would have loved to run away with it, it was also good to feel the adrenaline and really feel that fear at the end," he added.
Clark's five-shot lead from the previous day immediately shrank to three on the first hole at Bellerive Country Club in St. Louis, Missouri. He three-putted for a bogey, while McIlroy started with a birdie. Gary Woodland further narrowed the gap to just two strokes with birdies on the second, fourth, and fifth holes. The tension was palpable.
A nervous Clark faltered as the pressure mounted. He saved par on the fifth hole after completely butchering an easy fairway approach and then made a bogey on the next hole after an overly aggressive chip. Clark again escaped with par on the eighth after hitting the edge of a fairway bunker, before making a bogey on the 10th.
McIlroy also seemed to stumble intermittently, with bogeys on the fourth and seventh. But he recouped these with birdies on the eighth and ninth. And the popular Northern Irishman dramatically drew level with Clark when he holed a perfectly measured putt on the 11th green, sending the crowd into a frenzy.
The two golfers exchanged pars over the next four holes before Clark sank his 17-foot putt for his first birdie of the day on the tricky par-three 16th. For the third consecutive hole, McIlroy narrowly missed his birdie putt, giving Clark a one-shot lead with two holes remaining. On the par-five 17th, McIlroy hit his ball from deep rough into a fairway bunker and landed his next shot in another bunker – effectively handing the tournament to Clark, who picked up another birdie.
"I don't think I can be too disappointed – I'm probably not playing well enough to be disap-
