CROMWELL, Conn. — Before Thursday’s first spherical on the Travelers Championship, Wyndham Clark had not recorded a spherical within the 60s because the RBC Heritage concluded two months in the past.
He has had a tricky stretch, lacking the reduce on the PGA Championship and the Memorial. Then, ultimately week’s U.S. Open, Clark posted a closing spherical 77, which plummeted him down the leaderboard and right into a tie for 56th.
Yet Clark has been laboring in current months, hoping to recreate the magic he had earlier within the 12 months at Pebble Beach, when he set a brand new course report and received the second Signature Event of the season.
“To be trustworthy, it’s among the hardest I’ve labored in a very long time,” Clark mentioned.
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“First, we’re actually attempting to work on the quick recreation and really feel like we’ve gotten that to the place it’s in an excellent spot—identical factor with the placing. Then, sadly, you try this, and then you definitely lose your swing. So then I used to be engaged on my swing, and the final two weeks have been lots of grinding on the swing. I really feel like we made some good headway, and I hit it fairly properly at the moment.”
Clark posted a strong spherical on Thursday. He posted a 4-under 66 to place himself in rivalry after day one. The 2023 U.S. Open champion now sits 4 strokes behind Tom Kim, who shot a wonderful 8-under 62 to set the tempo.
“I performed nice. I simply didn’t make the putts on the again 9,” Clark added.
“So I felt prefer it was a whole spherical, and one blemish on this golf course is fairly good.”
His one mistake got here on the par-4 seventeenth, which has water all up the fitting facet and in entrance of the inexperienced. It’s a difficult gap, and discovering the green is crucial. But Clark pulled his tee shot left and needed to accept a bogey-five.
Despite that, Clark obtained off to a roaring begin, making three birdies over his first 5 holes. He even made a par-breaker on the difficult par-3 fifth, the place Clark produced his finest shot of the day.
“Just as a result of I’ve been working so laborious on my swing and hitting cuts, the iron shot I hit on gap 5, I hit a reduce 5-iron in there to about 12 toes,” Clark mentioned.
“That was in all probability the most effective shot for me.”
But he hit loads of terrific photographs all day, though the putter deserted him considerably on the again 9. Yet, he would a lot moderately miss birdie putts than par tries, which has lately been the case. Surely, Clark wouldn’t commerce his place on the leaderboard Thursday for what he needed to endure since mid-April.
Jack Milko is a golf workers author for SB Nation’s Playing Through. Be certain to take a look at @_PlayingThrough for extra golf protection. You can observe him on Twitter @jack_milko as properly.
