SOUTHAMPTON, N.Y. — It’s uncommon enough to be standing on the first tee with a six-shot lead at the U.S. Open, nervously preparing for one of the most consequential achievements of your life, and hear a few hundred fans sing “Happy Birthday” to the No. 1 player in the world a few feet from you. To already know that their love and adoration are centered elsewhere on a man who, statistically speaking, had quite a small chance of winning this major championship.It’s an entirely different thing to hit your first shot, walk down the hill toward the fairway and hear the following:Get in the bunker!Nobody likes you!Don’t choke, Wyndham!It’s not exactly normal to hit a shot wide left of the second green and hear sincere applause from the grandstand. To chip it and hear “Go! Go! Go!” as the ball rolled off the green. To make a massive par save on No. 4 and hear a sound that could best be described as a collective, disappointed sigh from the gallery.The overwhelming majority of the crowd on Sunday at Shinnecock Hills Country Club did not want Clark to win the U.S. Open. In fact, they desperately wanted him to lose. They roared for poor shots and chanted to other contenders that they wanted “Anybody but Wyndham.” This was not a Ryder Cup, where tribalism and us-against-them thinking have become (unfortunately) normalized. This is a golf tournament, where you root for players or for good shots. To see directly negative antagonism is outright bizarre.“New York didn’t really like me,” said Clark after it was all over, chuckling with the U.S. Open trophy in his hand. “I love you guys, but I did it.”Golf fans don’t like Wyndham Clark, for reasons both simple and nuanced.So when Clark two-putted on the 18th green underneath a beautiful, orange Hamptons sky, the reaction could be at best described as a tepid, ambivalent shrug of applause. Good job. You earned it. We’re not going to crown you, though.Why this U.S. Open course is diabolicalGabby Herzig, Lia Griffin and moreBut there’s a part of these stories we often miss. The loudest cheers in that muted moment came from a crew of dozen or so friends and family. His girlfriend Emily Tanner. His siblings. His friends. His agent, coaches and support staff. They all jumped up and down and shouted with tears. They grabbed each other with hugs. His father, Randall, crept out from the other side of the green, having surprised Wyndham by taking a red-eye flight from Colorado to catch his son’s second major championship victory. It’s the first time he’s seen his son win in person.And he saw Wyndham under siege.“He was fighting everything,” Randall said. “He was fighting everyone. He’s all alone out there.”Because while the world enjoyed hating Clark, these are the people who love him. Many who grew up with him and saw him rise to fame were the ones who were there when the family matriarch, Lise, lost her battle with breast cancer in 2013. They drank all night with him after that win at Los Angeles Country Club, and probably the ones who took him to the hospital the Monday after, when he tore his stomach lining, vomiting up his breakfast.