CASTLE ROCK — Given the way he’s played recently, the hometown crowd could be in for something special if Wyndham Clark is anywhere near the top of the leaderboard here Sunday morning.

Clark, who grew up playing on Front Range courses, is back to play a PGA Tour event in his home state for the first time. He enters the weekend as the No. 6-ranked player on the tour, fresh off an appearance at the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris.

His year started great, had some wobbles in the middle and could be turning around at the right time in the second of three FedEx Cup playoff events — the BMW Championship at Castle Pines Golf Club this Thursday through Sunday.

“I’ve gone back to a little bit more of a process. I think I was getting a little too outcome-focused,” Clark said this week. “As I had some early success in the year and was playing amazing golf, I think I just got — just falling short of Scottie (Sheffler) a couple of times and then you’re thinking, okay — I just got too much into winning and trying to break through and win in some of those big events.

“Then I got away from everything that made me successful, and I feel like recently kind of in the last probably four weeks I’ve gotten back to the process of focusing on the things that got me here, playing good golf, and I’ve started to play good golf.”

Clark won for the third time on the PGA Tour at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am in February. That tournament only had three rounds, but his charge to the finish line with a 60 to finish at 17-under-par was a harbinger of things to come.

He has not won since Pebble Beach, but Clark has made Sunday surges up the leaderboard a staple of his recent play. There was a 63 on Sunday at The Travelers Championship in June to finish tied for ninth. Then a 62 at the Scottish Open in July for another backdoor top-10.

Clark missed the cut at The British Open, but his last two events — the Olympics in France and the FedEx St. Jude Championship — have followed a similar script. It’s been a slow start, but a scorching-hot finish.

“I really feel like when I’m playing my best, it’s very process (oriented),” Clark said. “All I care about is my routine, doing the best I can before I get into the ball mentally, post-shot mentally, post-round, before round. That’s all I cared about, and that’s all I judge myself on.

“I think I just crept in a little bit too much of looking at the scoreboard and trying to force things to happen rather than just let them happen.”

Clark said he tries to avoid what is written and said about him in the media, but something about how he played when he scuffled through a 75 in the opening round at the Olympics found its way into his orbit.

That may have provided a little extra motivation. Either way, he went 68-65-65 over the final three rounds and the momentum he felt he was creating was fully restored.

“Even that back nine on that first day, I just hit it in the water and missed a couple of short putts, otherwise it probably would have been an even par or a 1-under round,” Clark said. “We might be talking about a bronze medal if that back nine was a little bit different.

“That definitely was a huge confidence boost for me because I know there was a lot of media talk about me being there and how bad I played and whatnot, and I wanted to prove to myself and my country that I’m a top American player.”

Now he arrives home in Colorado, with a chance to put an exclamation point on what has been a second straight successful season after four years of grinding as a pro. Clark has seven top-10 finishes this year in 18 events, including three of the past five.

When he’s on, Clark is right there with the best in the world — a fact he proved in May 2023 when he won the U.S. Open at the Los Angeles Country Club. If he can avoid a slow start at Castle Pines, he might get the chance to lean on a hometown crowd ready to cheer him to victory.

“Obviously what Scottie and Xander (Schaufele) are doing, I think everyone is holding all of us to a really high standard compared to them,” Clark said, referencing the top two players in the FedExCup Playoffs standings. “But it was an amazing year. Last year I was roughly in the same spot coming into this event; I was in fifth. Last year was an amazing year, too.

“It’s been an amazing run of two years, and I’m really pleased, and I’m hoping this is just an upward trend.”

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What’s harder to predict in August, snowfall at Colorado resorts in the middle of winter or the teams that will meet in the Super Bowl next February?

You might have a good feel for which two teams have the most talent, but what if one loses its star quarterback to a season-ending injury in November? You also might know that La Niña winters often result in above-average snowfall for Colorado’s high country, but sometimes La Niña winters result in well-below-average snow. That’s why meteorologists hedge when predicting conditions before Labor Day. Nevertheless, they try.

“I think the sports analogy is great,” says Alan Smith, a full-time meteorologist for the OpenSnow forecasting and reporting service. “You’re predicting future events, and you’re taking information that you have, but there’s so much information you don’t have, like injuries. You never know if a player on a team is going to suddenly explode that season – or regress.”

Still, anyone with an Epic or Ikon pass can’t help but wonder what kind of winter we will have. Labor Day is less than two weeks away, and the first Colorado ski area openings are apt to come in mid-October, most likely on man-made snow. So Smith provided his tentative 2024-2025 United States Winter Forecast Preview on the OpenSnow website.

Usually forecasts this time of year focus on the fluctuation of El Niño and La Niña in the eastern Pacific Ocean near the equator. Last ski season played out during a weak El Niño. Currently we’re in a transitional “neutral” status, but not for long.

“La Niña is favored to emerge during September-November (66% chance) and persist through the Northern Hemisphere winter 2024-25 (74% chance during November-January),” according to the Climate Prediction Center of the National Weather Service, which has issued a La Niña watch.

What does that mean for skiers and snowboarders in Colorado? Like betting on the Super Bowl this time of year, it’s all about the odds.

“El Niño and La Niña tend to get rated from weak to moderate to strong,” Smith said. “We never know for sure, but the trends seem to be pointing toward a weaker episode this year.”

Smith researched the six most recent weak La Niñas to see how Colorado resorts fared.

“Four of the six years were snowier than average, so that’s pretty decent odds,” Smith said. “However, one of those was well-below average. “That was in 2017-18, a very dry winter. If you expand it out to look at all La Niña years, Colorado does seem to have a boom-or-bust potential with La Niña.

“It tips the odds slightly in favor of being an above-average winter in the ski regions of Colorado,”  he continued. “But sometimes the winters that end up below average that are La Niñas can be well below average.”

The winter of 2021-22 was a moderate La Niña and snowfall was decent, featuring a slow start but strong spring snows. The winter of 2022-23 was a weak La Niña that capped off a rare three-year “triple dip” La Niña. That was a fantastic season for Colorado resorts.

“November was cold and snowy,” Smith said of the 2022-23 winter. “It really jump-started the season, and it was consistent all season long — one of the most consistent winters I remember seeing.”

Last winter, under a strong El Niño, was slightly above average for snowfall. Now we get to guess the odds for this winter.

“There’s just so many factors you don’t know,” Smith said. “If you’re just looking at history, the odds tell us it’s slightly better than a 50-50 chance of being an above-average winter. But there’s always going to be that chance it could be a well-below-average winter.”

Colorado’s first ski area opening dates over the past five seasons

2019: Arapahoe Basin, Oct. 11

2020: Wolf Creek, Oct. 28

2021: Wolf Creek, Oct. 16

2022: Arapahoe Basin, Oct. 23

2023: Arapahoe Basin, Oct. 29

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Originally Published: August 21, 2024 at 11:03 a.m.