CROMWELL, Conn. — Before Thursday’s first round at the Travelers Championship, Wyndham Clark had not recorded a round in the 60s since the RBC Heritage concluded two months ago.
He has had a tough stretch, missing the cut at the PGA Championship and the Memorial. Then, at last week’s U.S. Open, Clark posted a final round 77, which plummeted him down the leaderboard and into a tie for 56th.
Yet Clark has been laboring in recent months, hoping to recreate the magic he had earlier in the year at Pebble Beach, when he set a new course record and won the second Signature Event of the season.
“To be honest, it’s some of the hardest I’ve worked in a long time,” Clark said.
“First, we’re really trying to work on the short game and feel like we’ve gotten that to where it’s in a great spot—same thing with the putting. Then, unfortunately, you do that, and then you lose your swing. So then I was working on my swing, and the last two weeks have been a lot of grinding on the swing. I feel like we made some good headway, and I hit it pretty well today.”
Clark posted a solid round on Thursday. He posted a 4-under 66 to put himself in contention after day one. The 2023 U.S. Open champion now sits four strokes behind Tom Kim, who shot a marvelous 8-under 62 to set the pace.
“I played great. I just didn’t make the putts on the back nine,” Clark added.
“So I felt like it was a complete round, and one blemish on this golf course is pretty good.”
His one mistake came on the par-4 17th, which has water all up the right side and in front of the green. It’s a tricky hole, and finding the fairway is imperative. But Clark pulled his tee shot left and had to settle for a bogey-five.
Despite that, Clark got off to a roaring start, making three birdies over his first five holes. He even made a par-breaker at the challenging par-3 5th, where Clark produced his best shot of the day.
“Just because I’ve been working so hard on my swing and hitting cuts, the iron shot I hit on hole 5, I hit a cut 5-iron in there to about 12 feet,” Clark said.
“That was probably the best shot for me.”
But he hit plenty of terrific shots all day, although the putter abandoned him somewhat on the back nine. Yet, he would much rather miss birdie putts than par tries, which has recently been the case. Surely, Clark would not trade his position on the leaderboard Thursday for what he had to endure since mid-April.
Jack Milko is a golf staff writer for SB Nation’s Playing Through. Be sure to check out @_PlayingThrough for more golf coverage. You can follow him on Twitter @jack_milko as well.