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2023 U.S. Open Recap: 7 Takeaways Including Wyndham Clark, Rory McIlroy, Elite Golfer Dads, & More…
What a wild week at Los Angeles Country Club as Wyndham Clark won the 123rd U.S. Open for his first major title and hot takes littered the landscape until the very end. Let’s get right to my TOP 7 takeaways from it all.
1. It had undoubtedly been a breakthrough campaign for Clark
He won the Wells Fargo Championship and has established himself as a high-level talent, even before this week.
That’s great, but it usually takes a few spins around a major leaderboard before a player is ready to win one, yet Clark hadn’t finished better than T-75 in six previous starts. I interviewed him after each of the first three rounds for the U.S. Open Radio broadcast, and what struck me each time was a confidence that bordered on nonchalance, as if he’d challenged for majors a dozen times before and it wasn’t really a big deal anymore.
Not gonna lie: That insouciance toward it all had me thinking he was going to crash and burn when the real spotlight shined on him, as the bright lights of a Sunday back-nine have withered many confident players before him.
That never happened, though. Clark was able to maintain that steely demeanor, even in the most high-pressure moments. It’s something that most players who haven’t won a major usually struggle with in their first few attempts — and something that some multiple major winners still struggle with.
To me, that was the most impressive thing about this victory. It never appeared like the situation was too big for him. Apparently, because it wasn’t.
2. This was the scouting report for Clark
For those who hadn’t paid too much attention to him until this year: His two best clubs in the bag have always been driver and putter, which can be a deadly combo if he’s even just field average with his irons.
Well, that’s all changed this year. His approach play has been his greatest strength, though it’s not like his driving and putting have gotten any worse. This week, he ranked second off the tee and fourth in putting (while only 49th with his irons), but the biggest difference was his short game around the greens.
On at least three to four occasions, it looked like Clark was potentially looking at bogey, only to hit a pitch shot stone dead next to the hole and save par.
For the tourney, he ranked third in strokes gained around the greens.
Think about it this way: It’s not a stretch to suggest that if two of those chip shots run 8-10 feet past the hole and he misses the putt, he loses by a stroke instead of winning by one. It all accounts for a very fine line, but that short game kept him on the right side of it.
3. If you’re scoring at home, it’s been a rough stretch for Rory McIlroy
That’s now three straight Sundays when McIlroy was in the lead or close to it, but couldn’t get it done when it mattered most.
And while you’re doing such scoring, you’ve undoubtedly noticed that it’s been nine years since his last major victory. I’m not sure I have a great explanation for any of it — and I don’t think he does, either. This one is going to sting for a little while, as he had every chance to take control of the tournament and could just never wrestle it away from Clark.
The biggest mistake was a bogey on the par-5 14th hole after getting incredibly lucky with an embedded ball ruling. But this underscored the fact that nearly every single putt looked good for about 97% of its journey, only to take a late turn at the hole and fail to drop.
It recalled the final round of last year’s Open Championship. He was leading that one instead of playing from behind, but he couldn’t get a putt to drop at the Old Course, either. That has to be bitterly frustrating for him. If he weren’t hitting the ball well or couldn’t get into contention, that’s one thing.
But to get there and not make anything on the greens has to make him feel like he’s snakebitten once again like the golf gods are somehow conspiring against him.
4. Here’s the good news for Scottie Scheffler:
After a few brutally poor putting performances — he lost strokes on the greens in five of his previous six starts entering this week — he actually gained 0.20 strokes per round at LACC.
For those who believed that just a slightly above-average week with the putter would yield a title for the tee-to-green master, that didn’t happen this week. Not that the logic is flawed, he just didn’t hit the ball as well as he did in his most recent start at Muirfield Village, ranking “only” third in that tee-to-green stat.
What I can tell you is that for as much as the rest of the world is vividly aware of his flatstick troubles lately, Scheffler is well aware himself, tinkering with different models and sizes throughout the past week.
I don’t know if he’s ever going to be the best putter in the game — in fact, I’m pretty sure he won’t — but I do think he’ll improve soon. And when he does, watch out. He now has three straight top-three finishes, five straight top-fives, and 17 straight top-12s.
If that putter gets warm — not even hot, just warm — he’ll start turning those close calls into more wins in a hurry.
5. This U.S. Open lacked a buzz, because, well, it lacked spectators – Period
That was one of the underlying plotlines this week, anyway. (As my colleague Bob Harig said, “Golf but quieter.”)
That isn’t wrong by any means, but like some other sweeping declarations about this event, it deserves an explanation. The biggest issue is that the North Course was built more than a century ago – and for private play, not in hopes of someday hosting one of the world’s biggest tournaments.
The WM Phoenix Open isn’t a massive party just because the locals show up; it’s a massive party because it’s set up to be a massive party. If you build it, they will come, so to speak. They didn’t build it that way at LACC, which is understandable.
The fans who were here often couldn’t get too close to the action, just due to the topography of the land. With greens leading directly to tee boxes and barrancas guarding much of it, there’s just nowhere to put the people. And with limited tickets available, from what I witnessed this was mostly a country-club crowd, which makes some sense, considering walk-in ticket prices were going for $300.
Most events will see a decent amount of beer-swilling, frat-bro, mashed-potatoes fans who are there to make their presence known. Everybody at this one looked like they’d had a tee time earlier that morning.
And then there’s this – and I mean this from a non-LA guy who was shocked every night by how long the GPS said it would take to get back to a hotel that was five miles away: The traffic is an absolute nightmare. If you’ve got a chance to leave early and save 90 minutes of your life, I imagine you’d do it rather than wait out the final pairing by the 18th green.
None of this belies the lack of buzz, but trying to place blame on one particular party is trickier than it appears.
6. Some folks on social media suggested I should rip LACC North
For being unworthy of a major championship following a pair of 62s in the opening round and no scores in the 80s. Just as for Erin Hills six years ago.
My answer: We have to separate the course from the setup. While we can all agree that the USGA set up this week’s host venue too cautiously to start the week, leading to those low scores, we can similarly agree that by week’s end, it proved inherently worthy of having this event.
I fell in love with LACC the first time I walked around on Monday. It’s subjective, sure, but I never felt close to that way about Erin Hills. Seeing a bunch of red numbers on the leaderboard shouldn’t be a reason to bash a U.S. Open course, just the way it’s been maneuvered for a certain round.
That said, those who did (properly) bash the early-round setup probably don’t understand just how fine the line is between “a little too easy” and “way too penal.” Without a championship of this magnitude on this course previously, there was little background info on the best way to approach it. (And for all the talk on why LACC played to such a low scoring average early, the easiest explanation might be that the world’s best players don’t miss from inside 10 feet on perfect greens. Make those surfaces poa annua and we’d see a whole lot more shorties bumping around the hole.)
We do need to give the USGA credit, though. Sure, the weather cooperated, but the week concluded with a U.S. Open-worthy track that provided a terrific stage for this event, even if the winning score wasn’t something over-par like this tourney of a generation ago.
7. On this Father’s Day, a shoutout to not just all the dads out there
Imagine being given the free pass to play golf all morning and THEN turn around watch the final round all afternoon and evening, but a special nod to those who have the best gig in the game. More on this below…
I’ve had this conversation with colleagues on a few occasions and again this weekend, but there’s one specific faction of golf insiders who has things better than anyone else.
The players? Sure, they’re rich and get to play golf, but there’s tons of pressure and disappointment on a regular basis.
Swing coaches? Caddies? Same deal: They’re all one decision away from looking for the next job.
Media members? Hell no, trust me.
Instead, the best “job” is that of an Elite Golfer Dad. I’m telling you, some of the friendliest people in the game are the likes of Gerry McIlroy, Scott Scheffler, and Rod Fowler. They’ve all got a nice tan, they tag along to play golf at the nicest clubs, they’re all super proud of their sons, and they all get to hang out at tournaments cheering them on.
That’s not to suggest the moms aren’t just as great, if not more so, but the carefree demeanor of the dads in a world where everyone else is worrying about something always makes me envious of just how good they’ve got it.
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The Bogey Man’s Guide to Accidental Course Exploration: Or, How I Found My Ball (Eventually) in the Rough of Life
Ah, golf. The gentle game of precision, patience, and occasionally, profound personal humiliation. You know, the kind that makes you question all your life choices, particularly the one where you decided to spend your Saturday morning chasing a tiny white ball around 18 acres of manicured torture.
Boo here, reporting live from the depths of a particularly thorny patch of “rough” that I’m fairly certain wasn’t on the course map. My mission? To recount a tale of a golf shot so spectacularly off-target, it became less about breaking par and more about breaking new ground. Literally.
It was a glorious Tuesday. The sun was shining, the birds were chirping, and my swing felt… well, it felt like something. I was on the par-4 7th, a hole notorious for its deceptive dogleg and a bunker that swallows balls faster than a hungry teenager devours pizza. My plan was simple: a nice, controlled fade, landing gently just short of the green. A textbook approach, really.
What actually happened was less “textbook” and more “abstract expressionism.” My driver, bless its misguided heart, decided that “fade” was merely a suggestion, and “controlled” was a concept best left to professional pilots. The ball, a brand-new, gleaming Titleist Pro V1 (because, you know, optimism), launched with the trajectory of a startled pheasant and veered sharply right. So sharply, in fact, it cleared the cart path, hopped over the maintenance shed, and disappeared into what I can only describe as a dense, untamed jungle previously known as “the woods bordering the 7th fairway.”
Now, a lesser golfer, a more sensible golfer, might have declared it lost, taken a drop, and moved on with their dignity mostly intact. But I, dear readers, am Mr. Bogey Man. And the Bogey Man doesn’t abandon his children, especially when they cost $5 a pop.
So, armed with a 7-iron (optimism again, clearly), a profound sense of misplaced determination, and a faint hope that perhaps a deer had picked it up and was using it as a chew toy, I plunged into the abyss.
The first five minutes were a blur of tangled vines, unseen roots, and the distinct feeling that I was being watched by small, judgmental woodland creatures. My pristine golf shoes quickly became mud-caked relics. My carefully tucked-in shirt became a casualty of low-hanging branches. I swear, I heard a squirrel snicker.
Then, a glimmer! A flash of white amidst the green. “Aha!” I cried, startling a family of robins. I pushed through a particularly stubborn bush, only to find… a discarded plastic water bottle. My heart sank faster than my last putt from 3 feet.
I pressed on, muttering to myself about the unfairness of golf, the existential dread of lost balls, and whether it was too late to take up competitive napping. Just as I was about to give up and declare the ball a permanent resident of the arboreal underworld, I saw it. Nestled perfectly at the base of an ancient oak, gleaming defiantly, was my Pro V1.
The triumph! The sheer, unadulterated joy! It was like finding the Holy Grail, if the Holy Grail was spherical and prone to slicing. I carefully extracted it, brushed off a few leaves, and held it aloft.
Then I looked around. I had no idea where I was. The fairway was a distant, hazy memory. The cart path? A myth. I was utterly, gloriously lost.
It took another fifteen minutes of bushwhacking, a brief but intense wrestling match with a particularly aggressive thistle, and the accidental discovery of what I’m pretty sure was a very old, very moldy sandwich, but I eventually stumbled back onto the course. My playing partners, who had long since finished the hole and were contemplating sending out a search party (or at least ordering another round of drinks), looked at me with a mixture of pity and amusement.
My score on the 7th? Let’s just say it involved a number that would make a mathematician weep. But the story? The adventure? The sheer ridiculousness of it all? Priceless.
So, the next time your ball decides to take an unscheduled tour of the local flora and fauna, don’t despair. Embrace it. See it as an opportunity for accidental exploration. You might not break 80, but you’ll definitely have a story. And isn’t that what golf is really about? (Besides the frustration, the lost balls, and the occasional snickering squirrel, of course.)
Until next time, keep those swings (mostly) in bounds, and remember: even a bogey can be an adventure.
Boo
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Make watching golf more interesting.
Does the idea of sports betting intimidate you? Stick with me and learn how to make watching sports with your partner more engaging and fun.
Hey there, ClickItGolf fam!
I’m the Sports Betting Babe, and I’m here to shake up your Sundays and sprinkle a little extra thrill on your tee times. I know most of the guys on here already love golf, but this one’s for the ladies, especially those of you who’ve been watching golf with your boyfriend or hubby and secretly thinking, “Wait, can I actually bet on this stuff?”
The answer is yes, you absolutely can and you should.
I’m going to make golf betting super easy to understand, a little sexy, and a whole lot of fun. You don’t need to be a pro or know who won the Ryder Cup in 1999. You just need to know how to make smart, simple bets and enjoy the ride.
Let’s Start with the Basics: How to Bet on Golf
Betting on golf is like picking your favorite brunch spot. You check the vibe, pick someone reliable, and hope it all works out. Here are the easiest ways to get started:
1. Pick the Winner (Outright)
This one’s like calling your shot. You’re betting on who will win the whole tournament. Odds are listed next to each golfer. For example, +1200 means a $10 bet would win you $120. Favorites are usually listed around +800 to +1400 and less favorites, or long shots, are usually +5000 and up. Big swings, big rewards.
2. Top 5 / Top 10 Finish
If you’re not ready to go all-in, no worries. These bets are like hedging your weekend plans – low commitment, still fun. Bet on a golfer to finish strong (in the top 5 or 10) instead of winning outright. It’s a safer bet, but still gives you a reason to cheer all weekend long.
3. Matchups
This one’s juicy. Sportsbooks will pit two golfers against each other, and you just pick which one finishes higher.
For example, if you see a matchup like Viktor Hovland vs. Tony Finau, and you think Viktor is trending hotter, bet on him to beat Tony. Even if neither of them wins, if Viktor finishes 8th and Tony finishes 9th, you win. It’s a simpler way to stay engaged without needing to track the entire tournament field because even if they’re not winning the tournament, you’re winning your bet. It’s low drama, high payoff.
Bonus? It’s a perfect way to gain low-key bragging rights during Sunday brunch.
4. Live Bets
Tournaments stretch over four days. That means the odds shift, players rise and fall, and you can jump in with bets mid-tourney. It’s like shopping sales in real time—see who’s hot in real time and grab the value before it’s gone.
Why Women Should Love Golf Betting
Golf is the perfect sport to ease into betting. It’s slow enough to follow, exciting enough to matter, and gives you tons of chances to win over the weekend. Plus, nothing gets a guy’s attention like a woman who casually drops, “I’ve got Rickie to finish top 10. Let’s go.”
You don’t need to know every stat or swing path. You just need to be curious, confident, and down to learn. The goal? Make betting approachable for women and show the guys we can hold our own.
Why I Love ClickItGolf
ClickItGolf is all about making golf more fun and accessible and I’m all about the same. Whether you’re here for gear deals, course perks, or just that perfect swing tip, this site is your clubhouse. Adding a little betting action into the mix? That’s just next-level fun.
So, ladies go grab your iced coffee, fire up the PGA app, and get ready to make golf weekends a lot more interesting.
Follow me here at ClickItGolf or on Instagram @sportsbettingbabe_official and let’s turn birdies into bankroll.
See you on the green (and in the winner’s circle).
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Meet the Sports Betting Babe: ClickitGolf’s Newest Voice Bringing Style, Smarts, and a Whole Lot of Fun to the Game
Hey ClickitGolf family,
I’m thrilled to introduce someone who’s about to shake up your sports weekends in the best way possible.
She’s smart, stylish, funny, and knows her way around a betting slip—please welcome The Sports Betting Babe to the ClickitGolf crew.
Now before you assume this is just another picks column or dry rundown of odds, let me stop you right there. The Sports Betting Babe is anything but ordinary. She’s not here to act like a Vegas oddsmaker or overwhelm you with stats. She’s here to make sports betting fun, flirty, and totally approachable—especially for the ladies.
So who is she?
She’s the kind of woman who can turn heads at a cocktail party in heels one night, then toss on a tee and jeans the next morning to watch a game on the couch with wings and a cold beer. She’s sharp, relatable, and yes she actually loves sports. Not the fake kind of “I’m just here for the vibes” love, but the “I scream at the TV when my parlay falls apart in the 4th quarter” kind of love.
She lives for big Sunday slates, nail-biter golf finishes, buzzer-beaters, and 9th-inning home runs.
But here’s the best part, her mission is to bring more women into the sports conversation, and she’s doing it through betting.
Betting… but make it fun and responsible
The Sports Betting Babe isn’t trying to be your gambling guru. She’s not claiming to have inside info on who’s winning the Masters or who’s hitting a triple-double tonight. What she is doing is giving you the tools, confidence, and attitude to get in the game and have a damn good time doing it.
She believes sports betting can be empowering. It’s a way to connect, to learn, and yes, to make Sunday brunch with your partner a little more competitive. She’s all about responsible fun, setting limits, understanding your bets, and never taking it too seriously.
More Than Just Golf
Yes, she’ll be writing about golf betting often (because we are ClickitGolf after all), but don’t be surprised when she drops takes on NFL Sundays, March Madness upsets, NHL playoff runs, and MLB long shots. She’s a cornucopia of sports knowledge, and she’s bringing it all to the table served with a smile and a wink.
Her First Article Drops Tomorrow
Her debut piece hits the site tomorrow:
👉 “Ladies, Let’s Bet on Golf—Your Intro from the Sports Betting Babe”
It’s part pep talk, part how-to, and all personality. Whether you’ve never placed a bet in your life or you’ve been riding parlays for years, this one’s for you.
Follow Her Journey
Want more from The Sports Betting Babe?
You can follow her on Instagram at @sportsbettingbabe_official for daily takes, behind-the-scenes fun, and maybe the occasional outfit inspo for your next girls’ night and game day.
We couldn’t be more excited to welcome her to the team. Get ready for bold opinions, plenty of laughs, and a whole new way to fall in love with sports.
Stay tuned,
Bobby
#ClickItGolf #SportsBettingBabe #GolfBetting #SportsBettingForWomen #SmartIsSexy #GameDayFun #ResponsibleGaming
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The Bogey Man’s Guide to Accidental Course Exploration: Or, How I Found My Ball (Eventually) in the Rough of Life
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