SOUTHAMPTON, N.Y. — It started on the first hole and didn’t cease until the final putt had dropped on 18: jeers, barbs, pleas for balls to roll off greens and into bunkers. Sunday at the U.S. Open was Wyndham Clark vs. the world — or at least vs. the Hamptons.
“Man, they definitely didn’t want me to win,” Clark said afterward.
But win he did: with a clutch lag putt from 52 feet on the 72nd hole that secured him a fourth-round three-over 73, a four-under week and one-shot win over hard-charging Sam Burns.
Not everyone was rooting against Clark. Among his supporters was Julie Elion, who since 2022 has been Clark’s sports psychologist — a partnership that, at first, didn’t come easily. “I was a little reluctant to do it,” Clark said after his win at the 2023 U.S. Open at L.A. Country Club. “I’m just so glad that she was brought into my life.” Clark lauded Elion’s “great calmness and presence about her that just makes me calm and relaxed.”
When Elion first met Clark, she encountered a player who, she has said, was filled with negativity and self-doubt. “We had a little heart to heart,” Elion said on Season 2 of Netflix’s “Full Swing.” “I was like ‘Buddy, you’re on the verge of not being on the PGA Tour or on the verge of being a star. You have to make a change because you can’t keep doing this to yourself.’”
This was a way of thinking and living that was deeply counterproductive and even destructive. On “Full Swing,” Clark said, “I had trained my mind over years of belittling myself and thinking negatively, locking myself in rooms and not coming out for a long time or drinking to excess or being mean to people. I didn’t want to play golf.” But with Elion’s counsel, Clark worked on himself, and changes were made. He started feeling better about himself and his abilities. In May 2023, he won his first PGA Tour title, the Wells Fargo at Quail Hollow. The following month, he became a major champion at LACC.
This week at Shinnecock, Clark backed up that U.S. Open win — much to the dismay of the New York galleries, who seemingly were turned off by Clark’s “bad guy” persona, which was amplified by his boorish behavior at the 2025 U.S. Open, where after missing the cut he took out his rage on a couple of Oakmont’s museum-piece lockers.
On Sunday, as Clark plotted his way around the exacting test that is William Flynn’s Shinnecock design, ill will coated him like spilled paint on a countertop. The heckling got so bad that at least a couple of fans were shown the door.
Elion heard it. How couldn’t she have? On the 8th hole, she said she was getting so “pissed” by the crowd’s commentary that she needed to retreat from the course. “It got to me,” she said. “I had to go inside and talk to somebody.”
Not that the chilly reception had come as any surprise.
“We planned,” Elion said. “We knew.”
Elion compared the crowd’s vitriol to what Clark encountered at the 2023 U.S. Open, when all of California (and many parts beyond) were pulling for Rickie Fowler to finally bag a major. “When everyone yelled, ‘Rickie!’” Elion said, “he yelled, ‘Wyndham!’ inside.” On Sunday, Elion said, Clark took a similar approach, staying tightly dialed on his goals and committing to not letting the fans get to him.
As recently as Saturday night, though, Elion wasn’t convinced that Clark was in a good mental space. In the wake of his third round that included bogies in two of his last four holes, Clark texted Elion a string of angry-face emojis accompanied by a note about how many shots he’d felt he left on the course.
“I’m like, ‘Oh, my God, here we go again,’” Elion said.
But on Sunday, Clark, in a swirl of malice, found serenity. “Anytime someone said something negative to me, I replaced it with something positive,” he said. Clark’s caddie, David Pelekoudas (aka “Big Wave Dave”), was also critical. “I was kind of making jokes about it with Dave where if we heard someone cheer for me, I’d go, ‘Oh, there’s one person that likes me,’” Clark said. “So we would kind of make jokes and make it maybe a little light-hearted.”
Being a cold-blooded closer didn’t hurt Clark’s cause, either. He let the field back, but never all the way back — which points to what might be his strongest mental tool of all.
“That’s also what makes him great,” Elion said. “He’s so competitive.”