{"id":25756,"date":"2026-06-23T06:44:15","date_gmt":"2026-06-23T06:44:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/25756\/"},"modified":"2026-06-23T06:44:15","modified_gmt":"2026-06-23T06:44:15","slug":"wyndham-clark-us-open-champ-will-always-be-hero-to-denver-family","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/25756\/","title":{"rendered":"Wyndham Clark, US Open champ, will always be hero to Denver family"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bad guys don\u2019t hug.<\/a> Would a villain<\/a> go out of his way to comfort a distraught teen while she watched her mother fade away? Would one of the PGA\u2019s so-called scoundrels, his schedule crammed like weekend traffic on I-70, willingly offer up a free shoulder to cry on?<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s been great, just super gracious,\u201d Jeff Higgins told me by phone Monday from DIA before he headed out on a business trip. \u201cThe support they gave us, \u2018How are the girls doing?\u2019 Offering to come and talk for a while with us \u2026 his actions, to us, were way more compassionate than any of these narratives that were out there about him.\u201d<\/p>\n

Higgins doesn\u2019t know the Wyndham Clark that seemingly half the golf-dude accounts on Xwitter despise.<\/a> Or the one who spent last weekend getting razzed by the yahoos at Shinnecock Hills Golf Club in New York, only to win the 2026 U.S. Open, anyway.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not right watching Wyndham take some of the beatings that he\u2019s taken on social media,\u201d Higgins continued. \u201cHow he handled the whole situation, I thought, was really cool.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Wyndham Clark that Jeff knows is a cool dude carrying around this big, broken heart. Two years ago, the U.S. Open champ reached out to his daughter Brenna, then a superb golfer at Valor Christian, his alma mater.<\/a> Brenna\u2019s mom, Kim, had been diagnosed with cancer in 2023. The doctors initially gave her three months. She fought for 15 more, anyway, iron to the last. Kim eventually succumbed in November 2024, at the too-young age of 55.<\/p>\n

Brenna was a senior in high school by then, and Clark knew those scars, lived that weight. He\u2019d lost his mother to breast cancer in 2013. Lise was 55. He was 19.<\/p>\n

The parallels were uncanny. Brenna led Valor\u2019s girls to the program\u2019s first state title, just as Wyndham had done with the boys a few years earlier. She won multiple individual CHSAA crowns, same as him. Jeff even knew Randall, Wyndham\u2019s dad.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf there\u2019s anything we can do,\u201d the elder Clark had told him when Kim was diagnosed, \u201cwe\u2019re happy to do it.\u201d<\/p>\n

As Kim\u2019s fight headed into extra holes \u2014 a 3-hole aggregate became six, then nine, then 12, playing from clinic to clinic, treatment to treatment, through darkness and light \u2014 Jeff leaned on Randall about husband stuff, dad stuff.<\/p>\n

Brenna and sister Elle<\/a>, meanwhile, were more \u2026 subtle. At The Phoenix Open in \u201923 or \u201924, Brenna spotted Clark on the putting green and hollered at him. The pair huddled for a quick picture.<\/p>\n

\u201cBrenna,\u201d Jeff asked later, \u201cdid you tell Wyndham who you were?\u201d<\/p>\n

\"WyndhamWyndham Clark celebrates with his caddie David Pelekoudas after winning the U.S. Open golf tournament at Shinnecock Hills Golf Club in Southampton, N.Y., Sunday, June 21, 2026. (AP Photo\/Seth Wenig)<\/p>\n

\u201cNo,\u201d Brenna replied.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019ve got to be kidding me,\u201d Dad said, shaking his head.<\/p>\n

He sent Valor assistant athletic director Justen Byler,<\/a> Wyndham\u2019s old basketball coach with the Eagles, a screenshot of Brenna and Clark together. Eventually, Byler passed it along to Wyndham. Needless to say, Brenna can\u2019t sneak up on the two-time U.S. Open champ anymore.<\/p>\n

Kim also loved Wyndham, even before her diagnosis. She\u2019d lost her mom to cancer when she was in college, too. The family had watched Clark, in person, during his \u201923 U.S. Open win at Los Angeles Country Club. And yet, even from a distance, Sunday\u2019s title, and all the noise, felt a little sweeter.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought he handled it really awesomely (Sunday),\u201d Jeff said. \u201c\u2018New Yorkers don\u2019t like me, but I still love them,\u2019 that was a great comment.\u201d<\/p>\n

Clark paid for the lockers he\u2019d allegedly wrecked at Oakmont Country Club last year, didn\u2019t he? A young man lost his head. He admitted it. He went to counseling. He apologized, privately and publicly. What more do you want? In the age of social media, where cameras are never off and toxicity turns fools into kings, when did \u201csorry\u201d cease to suffice?<\/p>\n

\u201cThe crowd (there) was pretty wild,\u201d Spencer Sheets, one of Clark\u2019s oldest pals and a former Valor teammate, told me on Monday on his way back from Shinnecock Hills. \u201cI\u2019ve never seen something like that \u2026 the crowd was pretty brutal.<\/p>\n

\"WyndhamWyndham Clark holds the trophy after winning the U.S. Open golf tournament at Shinnecock Hills Golf Club in Southampton, N.Y., Sunday, June 21, 2026. (AP Photo\/Seth Wenig)<\/p>\n

\u201cI definitely had to bite my tongue several times, and some of the stuff people were saying. But I get that part of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

GET IN THE BUNKER!<\/p>\n

DON\u2019T CHOKE!<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery single shot, someone was yelling something,\u201d Sheets recounted. His tongue-biting continued, unabated. \u201cThe last thing you want to do is create any kind of scene or cause any kind of distraction. (As a friend), you just have to pretend like you don\u2019t hear it. They were pretty rowdy.\u201d<\/p>\n

GO OVER!<\/p>\n

GET SHORT!<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was the visiting Nuggets playing in Knicks territory, is what it seemed like,\u201d CU great Steve Jones, the 1996 U.S. Open champ, reflected with a chuckle. \u201cI\u2019ll bet it was a little bit worse than what we could hear (on TV) is what I\u2019m guessing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hale Irwin, the Buffs icon and Boulder native, remains the gold standard for men\u2019s golfers coming out of Colorado. But the consensus No. 2, Jones, a native of Yuma, says Clark just bumped him down a slot on the list after Sunday\u2019s performance.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, he\u2019s over me,\u201d Jones said Monday. \u201c(It\u2019s impressive) to win two majors, two U.S. Opens, when both courses were playing really tough.\u201d<\/p>\n

Not as tough as the galleries, mind you.<\/p>\n

\u201c(Clark) changed a lot in his life \u2014 he looks like he\u2019s been playing better,\u201d Jones noted. \u201cAnd his attitude \u2014 sometimes, that\u2019s what you need.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you\u2019re a kid, if you just keep getting away with these things and nobody says anything, that\u2019s terrible for guys growing up. But he got called out on a few things. He had to look down and say, \u2018I\u2019ve got to change.\u2019 It looks like he changed a lot of stuff. He\u2019s reaped the benefits. Not a lot of guys want to change like that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Clark did. Even New Yorkers, at least the ones that didn\u2019t get kicked out beforehand, were compelled to applaud a good American comeback story at the end.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe won some fans back,\u201d Sheets said. \u201cThey were cheering him on by the time he was done with his (acceptance) speech.\u201d<\/p>\n

None of which shocked Byler, by the way. The Valor administrator regaled me with tales of the way a young Wyndham played defense and hustled his backside off as a freshman. The way Clark got under people\u2019s noses, the way he competed, Byler didn\u2019t dare keep the kid off the floor.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s incredibly tenacious, incredibly resilient,\u201d Byler recalled. \u201cHe actually took those (slights) as a challenge. And he\u2019s been that way since Day 1.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s the Wyndham he knows. The guy your uncle in Jersey loves to hate once volunteered to caddy for Byler\u2019s son Logan for 18 holes at a junior tournament in 2018. Just because. Two years ago, at the BMW Championship pro-am down at Castle Pines, Logan returned the favor.<\/p>\n

\u201cSometimes we forget that these athletes are human,\u201d Justen said. \u201cThey really are ordinary people doing extraordinary things.\u201d<\/p>\n

The best ones prefer to do it away from the cameras, away from the smartphones and judgy thumbs.<\/p>\n

Higgins says the girls have texted Clark and his father since, even sending messages via Instagram. Bad guys lose your number. Miscreants block you. Knaves ignore you.<\/p>\n

\u201cShow him some grace,\u201d Jeff said of the Wyndham haters. \u201cHe\u2019s trying. I\u2019ve seen some tremendous, positive changes in him. And I\u2019m happy for him. He\u2019s been through a lot in his life. And as much as he was there to support us, I\u2019ll be there to support him.\u201d<\/p>\n

Want more sports news? Sign up for the Sports Omelette to get all our analysis on Denver\u2019s teams.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bad guys don\u2019t hug. Would a villain go out of his way to comfort a distraught teen while…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":25757,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[10189,5423,1443,8484,5315,10190,2845,1792,10191,10192,44,2613,898,6157,913,10193,10194,6734,56,10196,1288,10195,424],"class_list":["post-25756","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-u-s-open-championship","tag-basketball","tag-bmw","tag-bmw-championship","tag-boulder","tag-cancer","tag-chsaa","tag-college-sports","tag-colorado","tag-dia","tag-galleries","tag-golf","tag-instagram","tag-latest-headlines","tag-los-angeles","tag-new-york","tag-nuggets","tag-sean-keeler","tag-social-media","tag-sports","tag-sports-columnists","tag-u-s-open-championship","tag-valor-christian-high-school","tag-wyndham-clark"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25756","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25756"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25756\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25757"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25756"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25756"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25756"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}