Colorado Golf Hall of Famer Wyndham Clark aims for some ‘redemption’ at Masters after missing cut in tough conditions in last year’s debut; part-time Colorado resident paired with Jon Rahm and Tommy Fleetwood the first 2 days
By Gary Baines – 4/8/2025
Golf being golf, almost anything can happen on the course. Just when you think you’ve found something that will put your game on the right track for the near future, you have a terrible round. Or you’re in a terrible slump, then all of a sudden you have your best round of the year.
That isn’t just sometimes true of your average golfer, but occasionally tour players.
All that said, the case of Wyndham Clark and his first time as a contestant at the Masters — last year — seemed odd on its face.
The Denver native played a lot of exceptional golf in February, March and April of last year, and the table seemed to be set for him to perform well in his Masters debut, especially since Augusta National Golf Club would seem to set up well for his game.
In that three-month span last year, Clark won the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am (setting the course record with a 12-under-par 60 in the final round), placed second in two prestigious events (the Players Championship and the Arnold Palmer Invitational) and posted a third place at the RBC Heritage the week after the Masters.
Everyone has an off week at least once in a while, and playing a tournament for the first time can be a crapshoot, but few people would have foreseen Clark shooting rounds of 73-78 at Augusta National and missing the 36-hole cut.
Clark hits a tee shot at Augusta National during a practice round last year.
The 6-over-par 78 on Friday by the 2024 Colorado Golf Hall of Famer and winner of the 2023 U.S. Open was three strokes higher than his next-highest round on the PGA Tour up to that point in 2024. And it matched his highest score, at that point, on the PGA Tour in over three years.
After playing his first 10 holes of the tournament in 3 under, he went 10 over for his last 26 holes. On day 2, he was 1 under for the day through five holes, but he recorded seven bogeys and no birdies the rest of the way.
But Clark got the raw end of the draw, which certainly contributed to his woes that week. Strong winds wreaked havoc — particularly on Friday — and it’s unlikely that any pairing took the brunt of the windy conditions more than Clark, Viktor Hovland and Cam Smith.
Because of a 2.5-hour delay in the start of play on Thursday due to overnight rain, the threesome never came close to having a morning tee time the first two days. As is the case at many tournaments, teeing off in the morning is an advantage with softer conditions, less wind and purer putting surfaces.
The way things played out with the tee times, Clark, Hovland and Smith started at 1:24 p.m. on Thursday and dead last on Friday — 2 p.m. Cumulatively, no one had later tee times for the two days.
Clark working on his game on the eve of the 2024 Masters.
How bad were the conditions on that Friday?
“It’s about as hard a golf course as I’ve seen in a very long time,” said 2023 Masters champion Jon Rahm, who teed off 24 minutes before Clark & Co.
The scoring average in round 2 was 75.079, the highest at the Masters since day 3 in 2016.
Also not helping matters was the fact that, with the wind causing the contestants to take extra time, round 2 for Clark, Hovland and Smith lasted an astonishing full six hours. They started at 2 p.m. local time and finished at dusk — at 8 p.m. straight up.
“It was just very unfortunate that my first Masters I got a terrible draw,” Clark said in a phone interview with Colorado Golf Journal last week. “Only a few guys made (the weekend) from that side of the draw. For your first Masters, typically you would probably want there to be more benign conditions.”
It also didn’t help that Clark’s game was not at its best that week. Despite being one of the longest hitters on the PGA Tour, he played the eight par-5s (through two days) in 2 over par. That cost him almost four strokes to the field as a whole over two rounds. And on the green, through the first 36 holes, Clark sank one putt of 10 feet or more — an 11-foot par that avoided a three-putt at No. 5 on Friday.
“I’m not going to approach anything different” going into his second Masters, Clark said last week. “The good thing is I know the course better. I’ll be more comfortable out there. I’m just hoping I hit good shots and get the putts to fall.
“I would love to get a little redemption on Augusta. The main thing is I would love a chance on the back nine at Augusta because that’s the most historic and amazing back nine, and it would be fun to be in the mix” to win the tournament.
Clark and caddie/girlfriend Alicia Bogdanski during last year’s Masters par-3 contest.
Though Clark has dropped out of the top 10 in the World Golf Rankings — he’s No. 11 — he’s coming off his best PGA Tour finish since last April as he tied for fifth on March 30 at the Texas Children’s Houston Open.
“I tried three different golf balls during (that) week and I felt like I came across one that I really liked,” the Valor Christian graduate said. “I definitely feel like my game is trending. I don’t know if I found something. It’s more that I had good control of the golf ball and finally got some putts to fall.”
Clark’s putting has dropped off this year as he’s currently ranked 62nd in strokes gained putting, as compared to 19th for last year.
But “the confidence is growing, which is great,” he said at the conclusion of the Houston Open. “I feel like my game’s in a solid spot and now it’s just about executing and getting the ball in the hole.”
In the first two rounds this week at the Masters, Clark will be paired with Rahm and Tommy Fleetwood, with the group teeing off at 11:34 am (MT) on Thursday (the second-to-last tee time) and 8:26 am (MT) on Friday.
Clark, who lives primarily in Scottsdale, Ariz., recently purchased a place in the Denver area, where he’ll have a summer base when not competing.
“I’m hoping to spend more like 6-8 weeks there” during the warm-weather months each year, he said.
For all the pairings for the first two rounds of the Masters, CLICK HERE.
About the Writer: Gary Baines has covered golf in Colorado continuously since 1983. He was a sports writer at the Daily Camera newspaper in Boulder, then the sports editor there, and has written regularly for ColoradoGolf.org since 2009. The University of Colorado Evans Scholar alum was inducted into the Colorado Golf Hall of Fame in 2022. He owns and operates ColoradoGolfJournal.com