Wyndham Clark began the day poised to win his national championship for the second time in his career, but you wouldn’t have been able to tell by listening to the US Open crowd at Shinnecock Hills.
Clark opened the final round with a commanding six-shot lead, but the polarizing American was not the fan favorite among the boisterous Long Island crowd. Shortly into his final round, Clark heard heckles from fans across the front nine, leading police to eject multiple fans, according to reporters on site.
Wyndham Clark Heckled by US Open Fans at Shinnecock Hills
“Cops are booting people for shouting ‘Don’t choke Wyndham!’ as he sets up to his shot,” The Fried Egg’s Kevin Van Valkenburg posted on X. “This (pictured) young man got bounced for saying it before Clark’s tee shot at No. 4.”
The partisan leanings didn’t just show up in jeers, either. Clark hit an approach shot into the sixth hole that landed right on a ridge on the green. The ball slowly trickled down the green before rolling all the way off. As the ball rolled off the putting surface, fans started to clap. To his credit, Clark hit a chip shot to about 10 feet and made the bumpy putt. The crowd hardly reacted outside of a smattering of polite applause.
On the next hole, after dumping a tee shot into the bunker on the par-3 7th, Clark looked poised for an up-and-down. He hit the sand shot to 4 1/2 feet, but he missed the short putt. That prompted a hearty response from the greenside grandstand.
“You can really hear that crowd in the background,” NBC’s Kevin Kisner said on the background.
It wasn’t done there, either. On the very next hole, Clark hit his drive into a fairway bunker. As he launched his second shot toward the green, cameras picked up fans yelling “Get into the bunker!” as the ball pierced the sky. Much to their chagrin, Clark’s approach shot held the putting surface.
“I’m not sure we’ll see an American player at the U.S. Open get treated the way Wyndham Clark is being treated right now ever again,” Golf Digest’s Chris Powers tweeted. “This is actually uncomfortable.”
Why Are Fans Rooting Against Wyndham Clark at US Open?
It’s not totally clear why the New York fanbase was so anti-Clark, but there’s at least one obvious explanation. Clark took a lot of deserved grief following last year’s US Open at Oakmont Country Club. Clark destroyed a locker in the members’ locker room, an incident that left Clark in hot water.
He has since spent the last year trying to apologize for his actions, but some believe it took the 2023 US Open champion too long to atone for his sins. It wasn’t his first outburst, either, as the Oakmont debacle came a month after he threw a club in a fit of rage at a tournament in May 2025.
A shady rules incident in 2024 also lingers, as noted by longtime golf journalist Michael Bamberger, who wrote about another controversy involving Clark at the Arnold Palmer Invitational. Clark was accused of moving his ball in the rough at Bay Hill, something he denied.
Wyndham Clark US Open Hecklers Ejected by Police at Shinnecock Hills