'Play Big'

The news wasn’t good.

It was four days before Christmas 2012 — and Lise Clark had been diagnosed with stage 4 metastatic breast cancer.

The disease had spread so quickly through her body that chemotherapy and radiation were no longer options. Death was imminent.

But before she passed away about eight months later, Lise gave her golfer son, Wyndham Clark, a piece of advice he still routinely reflects on.

“Play big,” she told him. “Play for something bigger than yourself. You have a platform to either witness or help or be a role model for so many people.”

On Sunday, Clark won the U.S. Open, his first major title, going 10 under par.

But the journey to victory wasn’t simply about reflecting on some sage words and drawing inspiration.

It was years of success, then extreme hardship, optimism, then disappointment, hope, then setback, major frustration and then finally triumph — and the emotional odyssey has some key lessons for us.

After his mom’s death, Clark poured everything into his craft. He found immediate success and became Big 12 player of the year as a freshman at Oklahoma State — rising to No. 9 in Golf Week’s Rankings.

Then, he essentially “fell off a cliff,” as his dad put it. He transferred to the University of Oregon, where coach Casey Martin reconstructed his swing and instilled a confidence that seemed to have been lost.

Clark had very modest success as a professional and was ranked 293rd in the world a year ago, never having finished better than 75th in a major championship. He even missed the cut at the two previous U.S. Opens.

At one point, he even considered quitting the sport.

We often like to believe success comes from creating a vision, honing a craft, experiencing some failure and then fine-tuning our skills to become elite.

But the path to triumph is rarely as linear as it’s frequently depicted.

There are emotional highs and lows, points where we feel we’ve turned the corner, all to be quickly humbled and convinced we’re failures once again.

Clark endured all of this as he tried to lead himself following his mother’s passing and considered quitting the sport altogether.

Now, he’s having the best year of his career and just enjoyed what was undoubtedly one of the best weekends of his life.

Whether we’re currently grieving, experiencing some low that’s left us down or trying to get through some other emotional hardship, we can all draw a bit of inspiration from Clark’s story.

It’s one of playing smart, playing disciplined, playing effectively.

Above all, it’s a story of playing big.