The US Open golf championship at the Los Angeles Country Club concluded with Wyndham Clark taking the trophy.
“I just felt like my mom was watching over me today and, she can’t be here and I miss you mom,” Clark said when presented with his trophy. “I just feel like I’ve worked so hard and I’ve dreamed about this moment for so long. There’s been so many times I’ve visualized being here in front of you guys and winning this championship, I just feel like it’s my time.”
Rory McIlroy placed second place and told NBC “It was hard to get the ball really close all day” after coming close to winning.
“I hung in there, I fought right until the end,” he added. “Didn’t quite get the job done but… I’m going to keep coming back until I get another one.”
This is the first time that the LACC opens its doors to a major championship since 1940, although it hosted the Walker Cup in 2017. The exclusive country club opened its North Course to the championship and gave insight into a mythical course that not many have had access to.
“It’s like an unveiling,” Gene Sykes, president of the club, told the LA Times recently. “A lot of golf people kind of know of it or have heard about it, but have never been there. It’s mythic in some ways.”
The 325 acres course is in the Beverly Hills area and is estimated to be worth $9 billion, according to The Telegraph. Not everyone is allowed entry into the club and Hugh Hefner was one of the most notable personalities that was denied a membership. The publication alleges that Hefner, whose Playboy Mansion is by the 13th hole, was fed up after being turned down he built a zoo to annoy his neighbors. During the US Open final, some of the animals could be heard creating a ruckus.
Others not fans of the LACC include former champion Brooks Koepka who recently said he doesn’t like the “blind tee shots.”
“And then I think there’s just some spots that no matter what you hit, the ball just ends up in the same spot,” he said, according to the LA Times. “I think it would be more fun to play on just like a regular round than it would be a U.S. Open.”
