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PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Florida — A yr in the past, Wyndham Clark was ranked 116th within the Official World Golf Rating and had not often contended in a event on the PGA Tour, not to mention gained one.
Now, Clark is among the many most harmful big-trophy hunters on tour. The 30-year-old captured his first PGA Tour victory on the Wells Fargo Championship in Could and his first main on the U.S. Open the subsequent month. This season, he added one other win at a signature occasion, the AT&T Pebble Seaside Professional-Am in February, and completed second eventually week’s Arnold Palmer Invitational.
Clark won’t be carried out. After grabbing a share of the first-round lead within the fiftieth Gamers Championship at TPC Sawgrass, Clark adopted with a second straight 7-under 65 to open up a 5-stroke lead over England’s Matt Fitzpatrick and Maverick McNealy after the early wave of golfers on Friday.
World No. 1 golfer Scottie Scheffler, who labored by neck ache a lot of his spherical on Friday, is 6 strokes again, together with Germany’s Matti Schmid and Canada’s Corey Conners within the group that had completed.
Clark is the primary golfer to put up back-to-back scores of 65 or decrease to open the Gamers Championship.
“I imply, that is fairly cool,” Clark stated. “I suppose I have been breaking some information lately, which is fairly neat. Greater than something, I am simply tremendous excited that I type of had a ho-hum entrance 9 after which turned and actually simply received into a pleasant zone and felt actually good on the greens and shot an superior quantity.”
Saying Clark was in a pleasant zone on the entrance 9 at TPC Sawgrass, his final 9 holes of the spherical, could be an understatement. After making the flip at 1-under 35, Clark posted 4 straight birdies to start out the entrance.
On the par-4 first gap, he knocked his method shot to 1 ½ toes and tapped in for birdie. On the par-5 second, he missed the inexperienced from 244 yards, however then chipped to 1 ½ toes from 60 yards and made one other birdie. He made a 12-footer for birdie on the par-3 third. His method shot on the par-4 fourth practically hit the opening earlier than settling 4 toes from the opening.
He picked up two extra birdies with an 18-footer on No. 6 and a 9-footer on No. 9.
It wasn’t way back that Clark did not belief his putter sufficient to contend in any PGA Tour event, a lot much less in a signature occasion in opposition to lots of the greatest gamers on this planet. He stated the low level together with his placing got here eventually yr’s Gamers Championship, by which he tied for twenty seventh after rating fourth in strokes gained: off the tee and forty third in placing.
When issues did not enhance a lot on the greens on the Valspar Championship the subsequent week, Clark switched to an Odyssey Versa Jailbird putter.
“After I switched to the putter I have been utilizing, that Jailbird, I began actually seeing a whole lot of putts go in,” Clark stated. “Then all of the work that I did off the course in my psychological recreation, I began seeing it on the course as a result of I began making putts. In order that’s in all probability the most important factor: combining the psychological recreation with making putts, and now I have been capturing some good scores.”
Now, Clark is ranked fifth on this planet. He is 36 holes away from selecting up a $4.5 million winner’s purse, the richest in males’s skilled golf.
Scheffler, who’s making an attempt to change into the primary back-to-back winner on the Gamers Championship, stated he felt ache in his neck on the eleventh gap, his second of the spherical.
“I attempted to hit my tee shot on 12, and that is once I might barely get the membership again,” Scheffler stated. “So I received some remedy, possibly it loosened up a tiny bit, however many of the day I used to be just about laboring to get the membership in some way away from me.”
After his tee shot on the twelfth, Scheffler requested a guidelines official about getting remedy. He obtained a therapeutic massage from a bodily therapist on the 14th gap and once more on the sixteenth.
Scheffler’s spherical was off to an excellent begin with birdies on two of his first 4 holes. He posted a bogey on the par-4 fifteenth after pulling his drive into the timber, however bounced again by making a 15-footer for birdie on the sixteenth. He made the flip at 2-under 34.
Scheffler carded two extra birdies on Nos. 2 and three, the latter approaching a chip-in from 34 toes off the inexperienced. He made bogey on the par-4 sixth gap after his method shot rolled off the inexperienced, and he could not rise up and down for par.
For Scheffler, who gained final week’s Arnold Palmer Invitational at Bay Hill, it was extra of a day of survival and staying inside putting distance for the weekend. After his spherical, he instantly went to obtain medical consideration.
“I did what I might to type of keep within the event at present, and hopefully it will loosen up after which I will be capable to make considerably regular swings tomorrow,” Scheffler stated.
“I did sufficient I felt like at present to maintain myself considerably within the event, and in order that’s actually all I might ask for. The best way I used to be getting across the course, the way in which my neck was feeling, I did not know if I used to be going to have the ability to proceed taking part in, so yeah, good combat on the market.”
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