The champion they didn’t want: inside Wyndham Clark’s lonely US Open coronation

The major winner has rebuilt both his swing and confidence and learned to function without the approval of the masses

On the evening before he won the US Open for a second time in four years, Wyndham Clark marched up the 18th fairway at Shinnecock Hills to put the finishing touches on a third round that would leave him six shots clear of the field. He had spent the past three days patiently defanging one of the crown jewels of American golf, building the third-largest 54-hole advantage held by a US Open leader since the second world war. The title was his to lose.

Yet when Clark arrived at the final green on Saturday bathed in golden-hour light, one thing was conspicuously absent: the crowd. Most of the spectators had left or were leaving and the grandstands around the green were only thinly populated. It was a remarkably muted backdrop for America's once-and-future champion golfer as he stood on the doorstep of a rare wire-to-wire US Open victory.