Clark fends off McIlroy to win BMW Championship

LOS ANGELES: A nervy Wyndham Clark birdied the final three holes to dramatically win the BMW Championship on Sunday, having earlier surrendered his five-stroke lead to Rory McIlroy.
Clark had claimed his second US Open title earlier this summer by barely clinging on to a huge final-day advantage, and history repeated itself at the penultimate event of the PGA Tour’s FedEx Cup playoffs.
Having struggled all day, Clark finally made his first birdie on 16, followed it with another on 17, and watched on with relief as his final pair partner McIlroy bogeyed after finding two separate bunkers.
Clark sealed the memorable win with a 17-foot putt for a third straight birdie, and a round of 70 to finish at 17-under par.
“It was weird. I wasn’t really nervous.

I was kind of like out of it, and I just was making just dumb bogeys,” Clark said.
“As much as I would have loved to run away with this, it was fun getting the juices going, and (to) really feel the angst coming down at the end,” he added.
Clark’s five-shot overnight advantage had immediately dropped to three on the first hole at Bellerive Country Club in St. Louis, Missouri, as he three-putted for bogey while McIlroy opened with a birdie.
Gary Woodland then cut the gap to two, with birdies on two, four and five.
A jittery Clark wobbled as the pressure mounted.

He saved par on five after totally mis-hitting a simple fairway approach, then bogeyed the next hole after a heavy chip.
The double Major winner then escaped with par again after hitting the lip of a fairway bunker on eight, before bogeying 10.
McIlroy briefly appeared to falter, with bogeys on four and seven. But he pulled those back with birdies on eight and nine.
And the popular Northern Irishman dramatically tied