Ryder Cup: Wyndham Clark eager to face-off with Rory McIlroy in singles
Wyndham Clark claims Canadian Open lead
Team USA's Wyndham Clark is champing at the bit for a match-play tie against Rory McIlroy at the Ryder Cup this weekend.
Clark edged out McIlroy to win his first major title in June’s US Open and said in a recent television interview he would love to face the four-time major winner in a true match-play scenario this week.
And, while he attempted to play down those comments on Wednesday, Clark also questioned whether Europe’s players would pay the price for their build-up to the week.
Asked on Golf Channel’s ‘Golf Today’ programme about the chance of facing McIlroy in the singles, Clark said: “That’s exactly who I want. I’d love to play Rory.
“I have tons of respect for Rory. Because of that respect, I also want to beat him. I like to think I am better than him, and I want to prove that.”
Those comments were unsurprisingly the subject of two of the first three questions in Clark’s press conference and the world number 10 said: “The question, when the guy asked it to me, what am I supposed to say?
“If I say I think he’s better than me and he’s going to beat me, then I’m going to get ridiculed because people don’t think I have any self-belief.
“And then if I have self-belief, which I do in myself, people take it out of context either way, so it was kind of a tough question.
“I don’t know if Rory saw the full interview or if he just saw the little snippet that everyone is running with or if he’s seen it at all. I have not seen him or talked to him.
“I would love to talk to him because I imagine he’d probably give me some jabs here and there. I’d love to get a chance to play against him this week, and if it doesn’t happen, that’s fine.”
Clark is one of nine members of the US team not to have played competitively since the Tour Championship at the end of August, while all 12 European players made the cut in the recent BMW PGA Championship, with seven finishing in the top 10.
“It’s great that they got to play, but I also think they might be maybe a little mentally fatigued as this week goes on,” Clark said.
“This is obviously a very intense environment and mentally challenging, and then also you put in a pretty physically demanding golf course being so hilly and up and down that maybe come Sunday they might be leaking oil and we’ll be fresh.”
