Clark threatens to make it a runaway

Writing from Town and Country, Missouri

Saturday, August 22, 2026

Wyndham Clark, who leads the BMW Championship by five strokes entering the final round at Bellerive Country Club, says he has trouble sleeping on a lead.

Really? In June, he led the U.S. Open by six after 54 holes and hung on to win by one.

In 2024 at Pebble Beach, he led the AT&T (nee Crosby) National Pro-Am by a stroke after 54 holes and had to sleep on the lead two nights before classic Crosby weather wiped out the final round.

This would seem to be old hat to him. How soft will the pillow be tonight, Wyndham?

“I always sleep good, but it's more the angst when you wake up,” Clark said. “That's usually when I feel it. You wake up and you have that little pit in your stomach, you're excited to go play, and you wish you were teeing off right as you wake up so you didn't have to think about it. But it's also fun. That's kind of what we love as athletes and we chase after the moment, so I'm looking forward to it.”

He also has a secret to take the pressure off.

“Fortunately, I got a great girlfriend I can hang out with,” Clark said. “She distracts me and keeps me from worrying about what's going on and I stay in the present, so she helps a lot.”

The girlfriend is Emily Tanner, who recently left her California home for his spot in Scottsdale, Ariz., and was walking hand-in-hand with him Saturday after he finished off a 5-under-par 65 that positioned him at 17-under 193 at the three-quarter pole in this horse race.

That lofty total matches the 54-hole tournament mark set by Jason Day at Conway Farms in 2015 and equaled by Justin Rose at Aronimink, like Bellerive a par-70, in 2018.

Clark’s nearest pursuers are Rory McIlroy, who also shot 65 and with whom he will embark on the final round at 12:50 p.m. Sunday, and Patrick Cantlay, whose 66 also brought him to 12-under 198. Chris Gotterup and Gary Woodland are at 11-under 199.

A 65 on the weekend after a pair of 64s is solid, but Clark’s round could have been really good. After playing the first 36 holes without a bogey, he doubled the first hole, playing it like a 14-handicapper. After a sparkling stretch of 11 holes in which he went 8-under, including an eagle via a 12-foot putt on the par-5 eighth after an approach from 259 yards, he was cruising, seven strokes ahead of the field. A pair of par saves from bunkers also aided the cause.

Then came the last two holes. He lipped out a 56-inch birdie putt on No. 17, then dropped a stroke at the last – an actual bogey! – when he failed to get up and down from just short of the green.

“I’ll be pissed off for 10 minutes, then I’ll be all right,” said Clark, showing no sign of smacking a locker, as he famously did in the U.S. Open at Oakmont last year.

The eagle and birdie putts he made it the stretch from No. 8 to No. 14 added up to 77 feet 6 inches, valuable real estate considering the winner here will take home $3.6 million.

Clark has a secret for that as well.

“It (the hole) doesn’t necessarily look bigger, it's more you start seeing the lines and you're so much more committed. You're like, okay, that's exactly it. And then you just stroke it and the ball goes in. Versus maybe days that you aren't putting as good, kind of second guessing lines and you trust one and it misses and then the next one. It's more you just really trust your read and the ball starts going in.”

McIlroy, whose 65 allowed him to tread water and remain five back, came into the picture with an inward 31 that featured five birdies. He’s trying to become the seventh player, and first since Tiger Woods in 2007, to win the Western Open / BMW and the Masters in the same year. Clark would be the first since Jack Nicklaus (1967) to capture the Western and the U.S. Open in the same summer, and ninth overall, going all the way back to Willie Smith, who won the first Western and fifth U.S. Open, in the summer of 1899.

“I didn't hit my first fairway today until the 10th hole,” McIlroy said. He hit only four of 14 in all.

“Playing this golf course from the rough isn't fun,” McIlroy continued. “But I hung in there, my short game saved me a couple of times. And I got some momentum coming in with those birdies on 15, 16 and 17 and then a good up-and-down at the last. I'm in a good spot going into tomorrow in terms of where I'm at on the leaderboard, but it's going to take a heroic effort from one of us to catch Wyndham.”

If one goes by the old dictum that one must be within five strokes of the lead to challenge on Sunday, only McIlroy and Cantlay, whose 66 finished with an approach to 20 inches for a stone-dead birdie at the last, have a shot at catching Clark.

“I feel like my game's in a good spot and ready to go shoot a low one tomorrow,” Cantlay said.

He has to think that way, but Clark will be sleeping soundly as well.

Around Bellerive

Scottie Scheffler scored 2-under 68 and is tied for 15th at 5-under 205, a dozen strokes back. He’ll collect a $23 million bonus Sunday anyway as the points leader entering next week’s Tour Championship. … If play ended Saturday, the last of the 30 spots at East Lake would go to Sungjae Im, whose even-par 70 had him solo seventh at nightfall. … With a bit of a breeze (11 mph from the northwest) for the first time all week, Bellerive played a bit harder. The field of 50 stalwarts averaged 69.260 strokes. … The gallery of 40,000 will be matched by a similar crowd on Sunday. … The Western / BMW 54-hole record for largest lead is nine strokes, by Walter Hagen at Olympia Fields in 1927. In the playoff era, it’s seven by Tiger Woods in 2009. Clark is the 10th player to lead by five after three rounds.

– Tim Cronin