Wyndham Clark birdied his last three holes at Bellerive on Sunday and won the BMW Championship by three. Nobody saw that coming, and it just about flipped the Player of the Year race on its head. Before this weekend, it wasn’t much of a race at all. Scottie Scheffler had been winning and finishing near the top all year, and that was enough to make him the clear favorite. But Clark’s comeback changed the conversation completely.

After Clark’s BMW Championship win on Sunday, the Player of the Year debate now has some real heat. On the August 24 episode of 5 Clubs on YouTube, Gary Williams and Brendan Porath discussed the race, with Williams still backing Scheffler.

“I think the players, and it’s a players’ award. If the players vote, I think they’ll vote for Scotty Scheffler. That’s where I stand. Unless Wyndham Clark wins this week at East Lake,” Williams said. “I think they’ll vote for Scottie Scheffler. I think Scottie Scheffler has earned a level of deference here. This isn’t someone who’s just had a really strong year with a bunch of runner-ups that we’ve never seen before. It’s the best player of his generation, the best player of his era, the defending back-to-back-to-back player of the year.”

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But the part where he said if Clark wins gets interesting. Williams basically left the door open for Clark to change his mind with another huge performance at East Lake. And after what happened at Bellerive, that possibility suddenly feels very real.

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Wyndham Clark Has Forced His Way Into the Player of the Year Debate

Clark looked like he might let the BMW Championship slip away. He started the final round with a five-shot lead, only to watch Rory McIlroy erase almost all of it. With the pressure building, Clark somehow found his best golf when he needed it most.

He birdied the final three holes to win by three shots and claim his third PGA TOUR victory of the season. That victory also added another major piece to Clark’s Player of the Year case. His 2026 résumé now includes wins at the CJ Cup Byron Nelson, the U.S. Open, and the BMW Championship.

And that is a pretty serious résumé, no doubt. Scheffler still holds the consistency card. Clark’s got the bigger headlines, though, a major championship among them.

Here’s where it gets messy. Scheffler has already won Player of the Year four years running and wants a fifth, and the numbers back him up: 12 top-five finishes against Clark’s six, 18 top-25s against Clark’s 12, and he blitzed the field by eight shots at the FedEx St. Jude Championship along the way.

Even at Bellerive, Scheffler managed a tie for 12th while dealing with Hand, Foot, and Mouth disease. Gary Williams pointed to that kind of consistency as one reason Scheffler remains so difficult to vote against.

Clark has been here before. He was on the Player of the Year ballot back when Scheffler won his second straight award, over Clark, Viktor Hovland, Rory McIlroy, and Jon Rahm, taking that vote with 38% support. Players decide the award, and only those who played at least 15 official FedEx Cup events get a vote, so this really is peers judging peers.

That question is still waiting for an answer. The Tour Championship at East Lake is next, and Clark now has one more chance to make his case impossible to ignore. Scheffler has the consistency. Clark has three wins, a U.S. Open title, and a BMW Championship trophy.

A few days ago, Scheffler looked like the safe choice. Now, thanks to Clark’s incredible comeback win at Bellerive, the race is suddenly wide open. And if Clark wins again at East Lake, that “safe choice” might not feel so safe anymore.