Johnson Wagner has issued his verdict on Wyndham Clark and the state of his game after following him for the final two rounds of the CJ CUP Byron Nelson this past week.
Clark secured his fourth PGA Tour victory at TPC Craig Ranch. The 2023 US Open champion won by three shots after reaching 30 under par.
The highlight of his week, of course, came when he posted a 60 on Sunday in Texas.
Johnson Wagner lauds Wyndham Clark after watching his final two rounds at the CJ CUP Byron Nelson
In many ways, Clark’s victory came out of nowhere. The 32-year-old went into the CJ CUP Byron Nelson still awaiting his first top 10 of the season on the PGA Tour.
He had also missed three cuts in his last six starts, including at the PGA Championship. So it was a hugely impressive effort to bounce back and win.
Someone who has not been particularly complimentary of Clark so far this season is Johnson Wagner. Anyone who has watched Scorecard on CBS will know that Wagner has regularly picked Clark among his three players who cannot win that week’s tournament, including when he has not even been in the field.
But speaking on the latest episode, Wagner admitted that he was so impressed by Clark’s performance.
“He showed me something different in those last two rounds. I talked a lot about how much curvature he plays on the driver, moving it way harder left to right than he needs. I saw a very, very much straighter ball flight. He drove it incredibly well. His iron play was great. Some of the shots he can hit around the greens, too, are outstanding. And, oh, by the way, he putted like Wyndham Clark of two years ago,” he said.
“So it was a full package and I’m eating my words. And I just want to say that when he got his first win at Wells Fargo in ’23, he went on a nice run, obviously, went on and won the U.S. Open, and then stayed hot for Pebble, was in the hunt at The Players Championship. Wyndham’s a streaky guy, so I’m now not going to be putting him on my can’t win list anymore.”
Wagner surprised by what Jackson Suber did playing alongside Scottie Scheffler
Another player who had a brilliant week was Jackson Suber. Like Clark, he had not finished in the top 10 on the PGA Tour this season before he arrived at TPC Craig Ranch.
However, he finished up in fourth on Sunday, two shots behind Scottie Scheffler.
Wagner got to watch Suber alongside Scheffler and Clark in the third round. And he suggested that he was extremely surprised by just how far the youngster was hitting the ball at times.
“He played with Wyndham Clark and Scottie Scheffler on Saturday and I walked with that group and both Scottie and Wyndham are absolutely sending the driver. There was a couple of holes where Suber was like 15 to 20 by both of them. I didn’t realise he had that much power in the tank,” he said.
“He’s got really nice touch around the greens. I was super impressed with him. He’s got a little bit of a sort of a downward motion in his swing on the downswing and I think that probably leads to a little bit of ball striking inconsistency.
“When you’re a player like that and you get hot with the ball striking, you see him turn up in a week like this, and I think that he’s got a bright future. It’s just so hard to be in that position on the PGA Tour where you’re not getting start after start after start. You’re having these two on, three off stretches and it’s hard to build that momentum, especially when you’re a shaky sort of ball striker like he is.”
That is particularly shocking because Suber is currently 112th on the PGA Tour for driving distance. He averages just over 300 yards.
Meanwhile, he is 126th for strokes gained off the tee. So it will be interesting to see over the coming weeks whether something has changed within his game, or whether he simply managed to get almost everything to click on his most recent start.
