U.S. Open 2026: The two shots that saved Wyndham Clark on Sunday at Shinnecock

It was never going to be easy. A sizable 54-hole lead may seem inevitable, but this is the U.S. Open and this is Shinnecock. When Wyndham Clark teed off at 2:30 p.m. local time he was six shots ahead of the field. By 4:45, he was walking to the back nine just one shot ahead.

The following two hours had plenty of drama yet two shots saved Wyndham Clark and ensured he would leave, once again, with the U.S. Open trophy.

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As Clark walked over the bridge from the ninth green to the 10th tee at Shinnecock, he would have been hard-pressed not to notice the giant leaderboard on his left. His name was still on top, at four under par, but Sam Burns was three under for his day and the tournament. The lead was just a single shot.

As I wrote last night, the 10th hole would play a pivotal role in deciding the champion. Thankfully for me, Clark proved that.

With the pin position in the front of the green, just eight paces on, the challenge of the hole became very different from what they had faced in the opening three rounds. The firm, perched putting surface has a severe run-off both short and long of the green. When the pin is toward the back, players are generally happy to push their drives farther down the hole and attempt to skip a wedge shot back toward it.

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However, for most of the field, Sunday’s pin position required a different approach. While roughly 75 percent of players pushed their tee shot down the fairway during the preceding rounds, only 18-of-72 players on Sunday chose that route. Clark was one.

“I think in years past people have laid up farther back,” he said. “We talked about it. I said, ‘as long as we can hold the green, I would rather be 60 yards than 160 yards to try to hit it to 30 feet.’”

The headcover came off, a sawed-off “bunt” swing followed and Clark’s ball landed 267 yards in the middle of the fairway and ran out another 80 yards. Having missed six of nine greens on the front nine, his second shot felt pivotal. After watching Scottie Scheffler hit his approach from 106 yards to 16 feet, the cameras switched to Clark.

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From a tight lie, 61 yards from the hole, the 32-year-old landed his lob wedge 62 yards, skipping forward and then spinning back, coming to rest just four feet from the hole. The second closest approach of anyone in the final round.

“I clipped it perfect,” he told media after the round. “By no means did I think I could hit it as close as I did. That was definitely one of the better shots of the day.”

And he wasn’t lying. His approach gained +0.6 on the field, making it statistically the best approach shot he hit on Sunday.

He holed the putt, high-fived his caddie and regained a two-shot lead. His first birdie of the round.

Yet, the job wasn’t done yet.

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Clark would drop a shot on the 13th hole and by the time he arrived on the tee at the par-5 16th, he would have been aware that Burns’ birdie putt had missed on the 18th but his compatriot was again within one shot of his lead.

A double-crossed tee shot left Clark in, what Jim “Bones” Mackay would describe on the broadcast, a “horrendous” lie. With 319 yards left to the hole, Clark hacked out, barely covering the bunker on the left side of the fairway, and hit a pitching wedge to the back edge of the green, 24 feet from the hole.

The PGA Tour average on putts from 20 to 25 feet is around 12 percent. On the 16th green on Sunday, that number dropped to below 10 percent. But this was Wyndham Clark, second in the field in strokes gained/putting.

He read it breaking downhill, right-to-left and watched as the ball slowed but continued on line, finally dropping in the left edge of the hole. A birdie. A two-shot lead. And a giant fist-pump.

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The putt on 16 was the best shot Clark hit on Sunday. It gained +0.93 shots on the field and helped gain him another U.S. Open title. For the week, he faced six putts from 20 to 25 feet, and made half of them. Again, the average on the PGA Tour is 12 percent.

All the shots Clark hit at Shinnecock added up to a one-shot victory. However, it was two specific shots on Sunday that truly earned him status as a two-time major champion.