Wyndham Clark’s 3 Massive Upgrades | Breakthrough, Ep. 5

A few months before Wyndham Clark won the 2023 U.S. Open he was a talented pro golfer with a resume that disappointed him. But now? He’s a major champion and a top-5 golfer in the world.

On this episode of Breakthrough, Clark explains the three changes he made to get there: an equipment overhaul, a coaching change and a reconstruction of his mental game.

Wyndham always knew he could be great. Now the world understands why.

Enjoy!
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really I just want to try to maximize what I think my potential is and that’s in every category of the game so I think that’s more of what I’m trying to do is become the best I can mentally the best driver ball Striker I can the best Putter and chipper I can the best person on and off the golf course I can and if I can do and be in the best shape I can if I can do all that hopefully the results take care of themselves and I think that’s more satisfying than maybe chasing trying to be number one or two or whatever in the world because once you get there then what and so I’m trying to just become the best myself and whatever that whatever that leads to then you know that that would be [Music] satisfying Windham is one of the most fascinating characters in golf right now you know it was in his late 20s before he really started peing but then yeah he’s had this meteoric rise from outside the top 300 in the world now he’s inside the top five so I’m interested to see what he thinks [Music] happened wendam I want to talk about your breakthrough specifically what changed like what was the difference between the guy who was you know outside the world top 300 in 2022 and then was winning the biggest tournaments in the world in 2023 that that’s kind of a broad question but like what happened I would say it’s kind of it’s like three main things happened I switched Club manufacturers in 20 the end of 2021 and I switched to tide list and that change in itself my stats got significantly better better my ball striking got better and then in that I also went from working with the swing coach and always having them at a tournament and working with him on an off week to nobody and owning my own golf game and so I started playing really good golf um in 2022 at least consistent golf I was seeing a lot of good shots and I could kind of see the light at the end of the tunnel a little bit the last ingredient was the mental game working on that hired somebody really made it a big deal to work on it and I think all those combined was the recipe that kind of made me have the year that I did last year and the year that I’m having currently all right that’s an awesome like breakdown I kind of want to go into each of those just a tiny bit more with the club change what did you see that was different like tighter dispersion more distance like it was actually everything I mean really dispersion off the tea I had the distance I’ve always had the distance but I was not accurate and my misses were off the planet and I didn’t quite understand why that was and come to find out a lot of it was the club um and then the irons I just wasn’t as consistent as I needed to be and a lot of that was the clubs I was you know instead of spinning a seven iron at the desired spin rate that I was at I was spinning it way less and so the ball would fluctuate 10 to 13 yard difference and on tour it needs to be within a yard or two and so I thought shots that would be perfect and look good went to 40t or they would come up short or they’d come up short in the bunker plugged and I’d make bogeys and I did nothing wrong and just switching the clubs in itself I got significantly better what is it about coaching yourself that works because I feel like we’ve seen this with a few different people something about taking ownership of your swing and your game can have a benefit why is that um you know I think it’s not for everybody but I think some guys rely too much on someone to tell them what to do and in that I think then they don’t even know what to do so you know they have a bad day ball striking and I this mainly talking about me I’d have a bad day ball striking and I’d instantly go to the swing coach and say well what do we do instead of saying hey I think this was happening I tried this and it got better or whatever it is I just go to the them they give me something to do and maybe is good on the Range but a lot of times it wasn’t then good on the golf course and I couldn’t take it to the course and as I’ve owned it myself I I will be at home and I’ll be like okay it doesn’t feel good I get it to where it feels pretty good on the Range then I go on the course and I go oh yep that doesn’t work on the course and so then when I’m on the course I find something that feels good go back to the range and like I’m finding what actually works in competition and when I’m on the course and then doing that you learn so much about your golf swing and so when you do get into competition and let’s say you aren’t hitting the shots you want I can fix it on the Fly where I can go to a go-to shot and still go and shoot good numbers and still have good finishes where before it was just all everything’s off I couldn’t play golf I’d make bogeys I’d hit terrible shots and you finish 50th or miss the cut versus now I’ve had weeks where I’m not hitting it good and I still have a chance I’ve won a tournament where I didn’t hit it good and a couple tournaments actually and then I’ve had top finishes where it was like I’m not hitting on all cylinders but I’m playing golf and that’s what what is what is huge is you start playing golf instead of golf swing it’s funny I think athletes in golf but also in in pretty much any sport like you see people with certain attitudes where you can blame external factors you know of and that seems like that could be one of oh like you know I’ve got a stupid golf coach what like what did he tell me that for is there an element of that to where it’s like you can’t you know you can’t blame anyone but yourself so you have to answer for all of it yeah there definitely the ownership part’s huge and when it is bad it’s it’s on me um you know I I do think there’s going to be a time when I’m going to have to see somebody with my swing um to where I just get advice but I’ve kind of done it with everything I I don’t think I’ll ever have a full-time coach in any facet of my game where they’re on full retainer and I’m so rying on them I’ll go work with a putting coach I’ll go work with a short game guy I’ll go work with a swing guy but I’ll take what I learn and then I’ll go make it my own um yeah these are like definitely brilliant people that know what yeah 100% And they’re fantastic in what they do and they’ve helped tons of people it’s just more of for me it’s best if I take that and then I own it and then I make it my own and and um you know run with it because then when I get under pressure I know it works and I feel like I trust it works because I did it myself um and so then it leads into the mental game it’s kind of the same thing you know I’ve worked with other mental coaches wasn’t like I neglected that part my whole life I’ve worked with people it’s just I found someone that really connected with me and the tools that we’ve come up with that have really helped me in competition um so you know it’s definitely all finding what works best for each individual person but for me right now it’s kind of a lot of owning it myself and learning it myself and it’s it’s taken me a long time to do that but now that I’ve learned that I feel like now I’m able to play the golf that I want specifically I’m curious what that process kind of looks like like say say you’re starting to feel uncomfortable over four foot putts I personally feel uncomfortable over four foot putts how do you then like how do you use the tools in your toolbox to help yourself then in competition under pressure be like yeah I’m going to step up and hit that pressure putt you know typically if you’re missing 4 foot foot putts it’s a little bit more mechanical and mental than anything so it’d be okay clearly you’re not starting online because four-footers is all about line than it is more the read so starting on on line um so I’d first look at that and then if you’re still having troubles then you look at the mental part or I would do the combination of the two so you know you miss a four-footer like okay well what’s off you figure that out and then going into the next one I’m thinking of all the times I’ve made four-footers and I’m thinking I’m going to make it I’m going to hit a good putt this is going in the hole and I think of all the positive stuff and and then you do it and then you build off that go you know in your mind you’re like let’s go and so then the next time you have one you go I just made one I’m going to make another one and so instead of thinking about the one you missed you’re constantly thinking about the ones that you’ve made so those two things together I think helps you get out of that little rut was there a different type of pressure um that came after the US Open to to validate what you had done now you won a major championship I mean I didn’t play that many tournaments afterwards I I played Travelers Scottish British and then the playoffs and granted I made all the cuts and all those um it wasn’t the best golf by any means um but kind of when I got out of that maybe little bit of The Hangover from the US Open I finished third at the Tour Championship and that was kind of like okay there I just validated that it wasn’t a fluke finished third in the FedEx third in that tournament I played great end to an amazing year and so that kind of got me to where I was like okay that’s kind of over and then I went into the offseason and um yeah and then I just said all right that’s new chapter start over Line in the Sand and that’s that’s a new year you know last year was great but New Year and and so it hasn’t really affected me now maybe for a couple tournaments it did but now it’s uh now I didn’t think about it I mean and you’ve done a bunch of validating now uh winning at Pebble you know a couple more Runner ups at Big Time events are you surprised at all by how good you’ve gotten like were there times a few years ago where you’re like yeah I mean maybe my ceilings 50th best player in the world and now it feels different no I’m not surprised I not at all I thought this like I said I thought maybe it happen earlier and I’ve always known I’ve always known this has been there because you know I’m the one hitting the shots in practice when no one’s looking and I’m playing and I see what I can do and I’m playing in off weeks against top players and I’m beating them and I’m looking at their game and looking at my game and going there’s no difference between us and if anything I think my game’s better you know this is all internal thinking yeah and so when it wasn’t happening on the golf course that’s was so frustrating that’s probably the worst thing about my first four years on tour was the fact that I wasn’t playing to what I thought my potential was and that just Aid at me more than anything and so now now that I feel like I’m starting to play towards my potential it’s it’s almost like that what I expected the whole time so um you know it’s been really nice and it’s it’s amazing feeling but I feel like my work’s not done I got a lot more good golf than me and I hope I hope I continue to play Great Golf and I’m looking forward to the day when I really surprise myself and maybe play better golf than I thought I ever could I like that wa what is the ceiling like what what are your expectations really I just want to try to maximize what I think my potential is and that’s in every category of the game so I think that’s more of what I’m trying to do is become the best I can mentally the best driver ball Striker I can the best putter chipper I can the best person on and off the golf course I can and if I can do and be in the best shape I can if I can do all that hopefully the results take care of themselves and I think that’s more satisfying than maybe chasing trying to be number one or two or whatever in the world because once you get there then what and so I’m trying to just become the best myself and whatever that whatever that leads to then you know that that would be satisfying you say it’s mostly internal um knowing that you have the shots knowing that your game Stacks up knowing that maybe it’s better than a lot of these guys do you ever tell them you ever make it external um no I mean I like to chirp and I like to talk trash but I I I would never want to come off as um like arrogant in any way or but um it’s more of an internal thing like I’ll play with guys and I I really try to let my game the talking and so I’m sure they always saw it and a lot of guys would say that I mean a lot of players would say man once you get out of your own way you’re going to be really really good really and yeah there multiple players have said that and that is a compliment but also hit me right in the heart where I was like well what am I doing that’s not getting me there so so that would happen um and then now now I just it’s more of I just let the game do the talking and internally I’m always um you know trying to build myself up and but no I I never tell anyone like hey I’m better than you or anything like that what’s the next thing like if you had to critique yourself right now you’re like well this is holding me back still from I mean not that you have like that far to go but yeah I there’s a couple things I think um consistency is probably the biggest thing I look at Scotty sheffler um who’s kind of the you know the barometer right now of where you you know he’s the Pinnacle of where you want to be right now number one player in the world and he he’s just so consistent um he’s not winning every week but he is constantly in contention or finishing top 10 or his bad weeks are 15th and right now some of my bad weeks are 30th or 40th and so consistency in all parts of my game is probably the one thing that I really want to work on because in golf you don’t win that much right so it’s more of just always being on the front page first two pages of leaderboard and then obviously sprinkling in some wins so if I can get more consistent that that’s kind of one of my goals this year and moving forward and I think that ultimately will help me get to where I want to be last thing which is more important to work smarter or work harder it’s smarter now um I used to work harder um where I would maybe work longer and I felt like I was working harder than anyone but I wasn’t getting the results and so now I’m working a lot smarter I I know my game so much better so I I know what I need to work on in off weeks I know what I need to work on mentally and so I tackle those areas and sometimes it’s not as much work as maybe I used to where I’d be out there for eight nine 10 hours in a day grinding on everything thinking I had to have everything tight tidied up versus now I know okay I for this upcoming event I need this or last event I was doing this so let’s improve that uh mentally I did this in a couple areas and so I kind of work on all those things so when I go to the next event I sharpen those areas and so yeah definitely smarter love it all right we’ll try to apply some of the same thanks wind y thank you [Music]