Wyndham Clark took the outright lead at the U.S. Open shortly after 7 p.m. local time Thursday. For the next 71 1/2 hours, he never let go of that lead, no matter how much New York golf fans wanted to will it out of his grasp.Clark’s six-shot advantage was perilously close to evaporating at several points Sunday. In the end, his 72nd hole was eerily similar to the one that closed out his U.S. Open win at the Los Angeles Country Club three summers ago: A drive down the right side, an approach from a little over 190 yards, and a brilliantly executed lag putt from 50-plus feet to tap-in range and a one-shot win.These are the top numbers and notes from the final round of the 126th U.S. Open.1. Call it marked resilience or teetering on the edge of destruction. Either way, Clark took a difficult road on the way to his second U.S. Open victory. He holed nine par putts ranging from 4 to 14 feet over the final two rounds.
WIRE-TO-WIRE FOR WYNDHAM! 🏆 🏆 pic.twitter.com/k7kvzfXzTS
— U.S. Open (@usopengolf) June 21, 2026His strokes gained tee to green dipped each round, from a field-best 5.3 in Round 1 to a minus-1.5 on Sunday. Clark hit just 20 of 36 greens in regulation over the final two rounds, the fewest by a U.S. Open champion since Martin Kaymer (19 of 36) at Pinehurst in 2014.2. But like Kaymer, Clark is a wire-to-wire U.S. Open champion, becoming the eighth player (and ninth instance — Tiger Woods did it twice) to achieve the feat. Clark’s round of 73 was 1.6 strokes worse than the field scoring average Sunday. He is the first player to win the U.S. Open while losing strokes to the field in the final round since Woods in 2008 (minus-0.13). Those numbers provide interesting context in the tournament’s immediate aftermath, but they’re likely to be lost to history and the enduring glow of a U.S. Open victory.
