Wyndham Clark has been in the top 10 of the Official World Golf Ranking for all but one week since the beginning of 2024, and the one week he dropped out, he quickly climbed back in. After Clark originally committed to Oklahoma State, he transferred to Oregon where he blossomed into the Golfweek Player of the Year, under head coach Casey Martin. It marked the first time a Ducks player captured a conference title in 39 years.
And while his road to the top after college was a slow burn, Clark is in prime position as he heads into Augusta National next week in search of his second major title. His 2023 U.S. Open victory at Los Angeles Country Club has already put the American in rarified air.
Golfweek caught up with Clark in advance of the 2025 Masters and talked golf, fishing and cocktails.
Golfweek: You finished T-5 a few days ago in Houston. How is your game heading into the season's first major?
Wyndham Clark: I'm really excited. I really liked the course in Houston and think that it’s great prep for Augusta. Honestly, you know, it's been tough because people just look at results and say I haven’t had many top 10 finishes. I haven’t won, but I've had a lot of good rounds and good starts to tournaments. So my game, obviously, is still there. I just haven't put it all together, so it was nice to put a complete tournament together in Houston. That's the first thing. The second thing is I feel like I've found a lot of things in my game that have given me confidence. I have been kind of tweaking with some golf balls to try to bring down some spin. I felt like the ball I used those last two rounds in Houston was really good, and I think it will be really helpful throughout the rest of the year.
What did you switch from, and what did you switch into? Did you go from the Titleist Pro Vx to the Pro V1?
WC: I went from a Pro V1x to the V model. You know, I have not changed my golf ball since the 2019 Pro V1x, so it's been five or six years. But we found that as my swing has progressed and I'm hitting it better, I'm spinning it too much, and the window that I want to see out of just what wasn’t happening. We thought, okay, well then maybe we need to go into the Pro V1. So it sounds like a big change, but it’s really not. We're just trying to get the ball to come out and into a window and do everything that I see in my eye.
Last year, you drove the ball really well, and statistically, you were one of the best drivers of the golf ball out there. Compared to last year, that has come down a little bit, but at the same time, your short game has really improved. Have you been doing anything different?
WC: No, and I think that stat is a little bit skewed. I’ve always had a good short game. The more greens you miss, the more opportunities you have to get up and down, so it helps your percentage. But if I'm driving it great and I miss three or four greens in a round, and I don't get two of them up and down, regardless of the difficulty, I’m at 50 percent of up and downs versus if I missed 10 greens and I miss the same amount, two or three, I'm at 70 or 80 percent. Basically, I think I’ve been missing more greens this year. But, I think that's going to change now that I’ve changed balls. The less spin, I think, is gonna help me because I felt like into the wind, I had to ...
