A Great Wyndfall

For the last five years on the PGA Tour, Highlands Ranch native Wyndham Clark has been so close, so many times. He was the 54-hole co-leader in the 2019 Honda Classic - but finished tied for seventh place. Before the PGA Tour’s Wells Fargo Classic in May, Clark had 14 top 10 finishes.

If any small thing went wrong on a Sunday, he has said, that usually meant the beginning of a slide down the leader board.

That all ended May 7 in North Carolina. The Saturday leader of the Wells Fargo Championship, Clark bogeyed the first hole and quickly saw a 2-stroke lead evaporate. He and Xander Schauffele were tied.

“...to be honest, when I lost in - where were we, in the Dominican this year - I was beginning to think that maybe I’ll never win,” Clark told the PGA’s Amanda Herrington. “I know that sounds crazy because I’ve only been out here five years, but I had a lot of chances to where I was within two or three shots either going into the back nine or starting on a Sunday and I always seem to fall short, and not only that, but seem like I fell back in positions.”

But this time Clark steadied his ship. He said he played conservatively in order to make Schauffele have to make the big play. Clark played that way all the way to 18, where he found himself four shots ahead.

“Yeah, I really walked up the fairway and I tried to do as good a job as possible to stay in the present but also look around and keep my head up and look at the sight and having all those people there,” he said. “You only can win your first tournament once, so I was really trying to soak it all in.”

His victory granted him a two-year exemption on the Tour, access to this year’s Open Championship at Royal Liverpool, and earned him $3.6 million.

“Honestly, it’s really, it’s surreal,” he said. “I’ve dreamt about this since I was probably 6 years old. Since I’ve been on the PGA Tour, you fantasize about it all the time, and I’ve done it multiple times this year where I catch myself daydreaming about winning, and to do it at this golf course against this competition is better than I could ever have imagined.”

After the win, he talked about his mother - Lise Thevenet Clark - who died in 2013 when Clark was 19.

“My mom got me into golf, like she’s the first one that took me to the golf course,” he said. “She was not a golfer, so outside of after getting me into golf, she didn’t do much as far as golf. She was always my, kind of my rock in my life. Even in junior golf there’s times when you’re so mad and you feel like you should have done better or you’re embarrassed with how you played, or other sports, she was always there to comfort me.”

Denver-area Realtor Monica Lieving is one of the hottest acts in the world of long-drive competitions.

Lieving, 25, has won the first two long-drive competitions held this year by the World Long Drive Tour. In April Lieving won the World Long Drive Hobe Sound competition in Florida with a drive of 331 yards in the finals. Lieving made it to the finals by winning her quarterfinal competition on her very last drive, a 324-yard hit.

Lieving won the tour’s first competition of 2023 as well, winning a competition in March in Mesquite, Nev., with a winning drive of 362 yards.

The two wins have made her the No. 2 ranked competitor on the women’s division of the Tour, behind No. 1 ranked player Devon Casazza of Scottsdale, Arizona.

Lieving began golfing at the age of 12 in her home state of Illinois. She said her driving was quickly a strong suit, and she won one long-drive hole during a match in high school. But she did not think about competing as she golfed four years for Arkansas State University, then took a job after college in Denver with Lockheed Martin. After switching to a career as a Realtor, Lieving was playing a round of golf with friends from her former job when she drove the green on a par 4.

“A guy on neighboring tee - Andrew Eigner, a pro long driver - saw me and came over and asked ‘Do you always hit it that far?’” she said. He encouraged her to meet him at a TrackMan facility to test her swing speed. “We met three months later and I hadn’t swung since that day. That day I got up to 168 mph. He said ‘I don’t think you know this but you can compete against the best women in the world.’ “

Lieving competed in 2022, winning one tournament, before starting out this year 2-for-2. She is