Although Wyndham Clark and Christian McCaffrey played two very different sports, it seems they had little trouble bonding. The current PGA Tour pro and star NFL running back for the Carolina Panthers both attended Valor Christian High School in Highlands Ranch, Colorado.
Clark and McCaffrey became friends in high school, as PGATour.com revealed. They graduated in different years, as Clark is currently 25 and began his collegiate golf career during the 2012-13 season. As for McCaffrey, he’s 22 and his first season with the Stanford Cardinal came in 2014.
The Panthers running back took to social media to show some love to Clark and fellow golfer and Web.com Tour’s Maverick McNealy back in 2017.
@BenHoganAward @DeanDeLucaInv @StanfordMGolf @IlliniMGolf @OregonMGolf @DJ_DFunk @MavMcNealy @Wyndham_Clark Went to high school with @Wyndham_Clark and college with @MavMcNealy. Pretty cool but I still can’t hit the ball straight 😔
McNealy responded that he’s “down for a game whenever you are!” to McCaffrey. Clark also responded by poking some fun at the NFL running back.
@CMcCaffrey5 @BenHoganAward @DeanDeLucaInv @StanfordMGolf @IlliniMGolf @OregonMGolf @DJ_DFunk @MavMcNealy It’s cuz you’re not an athlete like Mav and I 💪🏽
Although both McCaffrey and Clark went to high school together, the two took very different routes when it came to their college decisions. Originally, the PGA Tour pro chose to head to Oklahoma State before transferring after the 2015-16 season. As previously noted, McCaffrey went on to have an exceptional career at Stanford before heading to the NFL and becoming the No. 8 pick in the 2017 NFL Draft.
Wyndham Clark’s Impressive 2016-17 Season at Oregon
Clark lost his mother to breast cancer in 2013 after she was originally diagnosed in 1997. Clark’s father Randall stated his son “fell off a cliff,” per Golf Week after his mother’s passing. The golfer spoke about his mother to the school newspaper while at Oregon.
“She’s a lot of the reason why I play today,” Clark once told the school newspaper at Oregon. “She was there when I played bad, and there to console me and make me feel better. When I played great she was there to hug me and be super excited for me. She was a huge part of my upbringing.”
His college career began at Oklahoma State, but after transferring to the University of Oregon, he thrived and started to make waves. Clark was a 2017 Ben Hogan Award Finalist and was named Pac-12 Player of the Year. He won the Pac-12 Championship and was ranked No. 1 on Golfstrat during the 2016-17 season.
Start to Wyndham Clark’s PGA Career
After going pro in 2017, Clark has made 10 of 18 cuts thus far in his young career. His start to the 2019 season has been worth noting, as he posted a top-10 finish at the Puerto Rico Open, the first of his career. Beyond that finish, his 2019 campaign to this point has also included a T18 at the Desert Classic and T33 at Safeway Open.
Clark enters the final day of the 2019 Honda Classic with the lead and is in search of his first PGA victory. The 25-year-old has made $252,898 this year alone, but a victory at the Honda Classic would more than quadruple his earnings this season. Even putting the money aside, Clark has made a name for himself through the early stages of 2019 and is trending upward quickly.
READ NEXT: Wyndham Clark Career Earnings: How Much Money Has Golfer Won?
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Wyndham Clark, Christian McCaffrey Were High School Friends