Wyndham Clark outduels Xander Schauffele to win 2023 Wells Fargo Championship for first PGA Tour victory
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Seeing as it’s Coronation weekend across the pond in the United Kingdom, it’s only fitting a first-time PGA Tour winner would be crowned in the Queen City.
After five long years, the wait is over for Wyndham Clark.
Clark held a two-shot lead over world No. 5 Xander Schauffele and said after Saturday’s third round he was looking forward to the challenge of a high-stakes final round and was curious how he’d handle the pressure. The 29-year-old shot a 3-under 68 on Sunday at Quail Hollow to finish at 19 under and win by four shots over Schauffele for his maiden victory on Tour.
After a handful of close calls, Clark was truly beginning to wonder if he’d ever win on Tour.
“I know that sounds crazy because I’ve only been out here five years, but I had a lot of chances to where I was within two or three shots either going into the back nine or starting on a Sunday and I always seem to fall short, and not only that, but seem like I fell back in positions,” Clark explained. “I think in the past I sometimes shied away maybe from those pressure moments because I would get too amped up.”
“Today, I was excited. When he made putts, I was like, ‘yeah, all right, now I’ve got to do it.’ I just think Xander and I fed off each other really well Saturday and Sunday,” Clark continued. “He played amazing and I think a lot of how good I played was because he was putting pressure on me. So I just felt like all right, I can’t just coast in and make a bunch of pars, I’ve got to make birdies. Yeah, I really like how I handled the pressure.”
Schauffele, 29, shot a 1-under 70 on Sunday to finish runner-up at 15 under and inside the top five for the fifth time this season. Harris English (69) and Tyrrell Hatton (70) finished T-3 at 12 under.
WELLS FARGO: Leaderboard | Best shots
Clark bogeyed the first hole and Schauffele birdied the third to tie the lead at 15 under before he briefly took the solo lead with another birdie on the par-5 7th hole, the second easiest hole of the week. It didn’t take long for Clark to respond with his first birdie of the day on No. 8, and a Schauffele bogey on the ninth returned the lead to Clark with nine holes to play.
“Sure, early on it wasn’t as pretty as I wanted and I didn’t maintain the lead, but as I started making birdies and putts, I started to really believe that I could do this,” said Clark. “And fortunately Xander made some mistakes and then it really propelled me to continue playing well.”
Clark extended the lead to two with a birdie on the par-5 10th, and after a poor tee shot on the 11th found the pine straw among the trees, he managed a crucial up-and-down from the greenside bunker to save par and increase his lead to three after a bad Schauffele bogey. He then took a four-shot lead with six to play with a birdie on No. 12.
Both players made consecutive birdies on Nos. 14 and 15, but Schauffele’s third bogey of the day on the par-3 17th gave Clark a four-shot lead and the win.
Play big ❤️
Remembering his mom, these are words @Wyndham_Clark lives by on and off the course.
He looks to play big today as he chases his first win on TOUR @WellsFargoGolf. pic.twitter.com/5o6h5UaGuf
— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) May 7, 2023
While Clark may not be a household name, if you’ve been paying attention this season you’d know a victory was coming sooner rather than later for the Scottsdale, Arizona, resident. After a career-best Players Championship finish earlier this year in March (T-27), Clark has consistently been in the mix ever since with consecutive finishes of 5-6-T29-3-T24 entering this week. In 19 starts this season, Clark now has nine top-25 finishes, with six inside the top 10.
As the PGA Tour’s ninth designated event of the season, the 156-player field was competing for a $20 million purse. Clark took home the top prize of $3.6 million, a whopping seven times more than his previous largest paycheck on Tour, $485,000 after a 10th-place finish at the 2023 WM Phoenix Open.
The win doesn’t just earn Clark a massive payday, it also earns him his first-ever Masters invitation for the 2024 event at Augusta National.
“I’ve dreamt about this since I was probably 6 years old,” said Clark. “Since I’ve been on the PGA Tour, you fantasize about it all the time, and I’ve done it multiple times this year where I catch myself daydreaming about winning, and to do it at this golf course against this competition is better than I could ever have imagined.”
“I really walked up (the 18th fairway) and I tried to do as good a job as possible to stay in the present but also look around and keep my head up and look at the sight and having all those people there,” he said. “You only can win your first tournament once, so I was really trying to soak it all in.”
