The brothers from Parker, ages 10 and 6, bounced along the walkway Sunday that bridged the 18th hole and the giant clubhouse at Castle Pines Golf Club, and with good reason. Both carried a pale white golf ball kissed by a signature in black, still-wet ink. Clark’s signature.

“What are you going to do with those balls?” I asked them.

“Put it in my room on a shelf,” Brecken said, “after we finish re-doing my room.”

Miken had a better idea.

“I’m gonna sell it,” he said.

“Really?” I gasped.

“Yeah,” Miken continued, “it’s gotta be worth something.”

Gotta say: Kid had a point there.

“You’re not going to do that,” their father, Dylan Schoonover, said in a voice that wagged like a grandma’s finger. “You are not going to do that.”

“It’s gotta be worth something, though,” Miken pleaded.

“Absolutely not.”

“But you said I could sell that Pokemon card …”

“No, no, that’s a Pokemon card,” Dylan stressed. “It’s totally different.”

You can’t put a price on pressing the flesh with an honest-to-goodness local legend. Who cares if said legend shot a 74 at the BMW Championship on Sunday?

“That’s pretty sick that they got to meet Wyndham Clark, him being a hometown kid and everything,” Dylan said of Clark, the former Valor Christian standout who also happens to be ranked as the fifth-best golfer on the planet. “These kids are all gonna go to Valor. They go to Cherry Hills right now, which feeds right into Valor. So just couldn’t be more thankful.”

Clark finished in a nine-way tie for 13th, thanks to a slew of stinkers on the final four holes, and might’ve won the weekend anyway. Late Saturday night, the ex-Eagles great announced he was donating $50,000 to a Colorado charity via his PLAY BIG foundation.

A man in the spotlight bares his true colors when the cameras are turned off. After his toughest round of the tourney, Clark spent the next 25-30 minutes signing autographs, posing for pictures, and making forever memories. Loving his hometown. His hometown loving him right back.

“That was really cool,” Clark reflected. “I’m bummed with my play. I wish I could play better.”

Valor’s finest had pulled into a tie for fifth after back-to-back birdies on the 10th and 11th, poised for a late charge. But Front Range winds, like momentum, proved fleeting. A bogey at the 15th knocked Clark back to even on the day, staggering him. No. 17 landed a right cross for the knockout.

His tee shot took a hard hook into the trees right of the fairway. His second stayed right of safety and plopped into a deep bunker. His third refused to leave the sand. His fourth cleared the bunker, but also the green — overshooting the mark, scattering the crowd and rolling into a gap in the gallery. His fifth cleared the spectators, then rolled into a bunker hidden behind the green. It took two more shots to end the torment, and the double-bogey cost him a spot in the top 10.

“(With) altitude golf, (it’s) very hard to control the ball,” Clark said later. “Sometimes it gets a little goofy trying to control your distance. And that’s all I’ve got to say on that. I mean, I didn’t make many putts. It’s tough to play at altitude.”

But the Dub Club showed out anyway, cheering harder and louder the farther that blasted ball was from the hole.

“YOU CAN DO IT, WYNDHAM!”

“YEAH, WYNDHAM!”

“YOU GOT THIS, WYNDHAM!”

“WOOOOOOOOOOOO!”

A mini-wall of willing high-fivers lined up on the pedestrian path left and uphill of the green. Darned if Clark didn’t slap every last one of those palms, just a few seconds after his worst stinking hole of the weekend.

“I mean, it was nice that they showed me love,” Clark said. “Obviously, I really screwed up the tournament on that hole. But it was nice to have the love.”

Castle Pines turned its back on him late, sadly. The breeze, at elevation, made sure shots a mystery. With the rough thick and flowing as a Newfoundland’s coat, all it took was one bad gust to spoil an afternoon.

“I mean, it’s hard to play at altitude,” Clark said. “We control our ball to the yard 90% of the time. And you’ll come here, and it’s like 40% of the time. And it’s just a guessing game. There’s a lot of luck involved with all the (shots).

“But with that said, Denver’s a great sports town. This is a great golf course. And the love and support we feel from the fans here is amazing.”

Darn straight. So let’s not make it 18 years until the next one at Castle Pines, maybe?

“I would love for us to come back here at least every few years — every other year, every year,” Clark said. “I mean, it would be great to be able to come back here. I hope we do. Hopefully, we’ll figure that out.”

Hopefully. Because for the kids and their dads in the crowd, a Sunday afternoon watching Wyndham Clark up close was absolutely priceless.

Well, mostly priceless.

“Dad,” Miken asked quietly, “if I wash it, will the autograph come off the ball?”

“Yes,” Dylan sighed as they turned on a sunbeam and walked toward the clubhouse. “Yes it will.”

In Memphis, Keegan Bradley needed to finish the day 50th or higher in the FedExCup points standings just to qualify for the next round the following week in Denver. He was teetering. In Wyoming, Mark checked his phone from the golf course and saw his son was No. 51. Keegan needed help.

He got it from his competitors. The next time Mark checked, his son was back in 50th. “Gee whiz,” he recalls telling his friend, Bernie Wirth.

“So we go the whole day — now we’re just checking and checking it. And it held. Once we realized Keegan made it, I looked at Bernie and said, ‘I’m going.'”

After years of bad luck, the Bradleys finally got the timing right in Denver. Bradley’s 50th-to-first triumph at the BMW Championship on Sunday was more sentimental than his six previous wins on the PGA Tour. This was the first time his dad had been with him to see it in person.

“I was on the bag when he won the Wyoming State Amateur,” Mark told The Denver Post on the 18th green at Castle Pines Golf Club, while Keegan cradled the trophy for photos nearby. “And then I was there for — I don’t know. That’s it.”

Keegan is from Woodstock, Vermont, but his dad became the club professional at Jackson Hole Golf & Tennis Club in 2005. Summers during college started with a three-day drive from St. John’s in New York City. Keegan worked at the club, played local tournaments and went fishing until it was time to haul his Ford Focus back east for the fall semester.

“It’s a special thing to win on the PGA Tour, and it’s something that you really have to cherish,” Keegan said Sunday. “And to have him here makes it that much more special.”

Mark is retired now, so he faced no obstacles planning an impromptu trip to Colorado. It wasn’t always that simple. Bailing on his club for three-day weekends was a luxury he could rarely afford. He used to make it to a handful of events every year, but never the ones that Keegan won.

He was in Jackson Hole all six times his son lifted a trophy, celebrating in silent solitude.

“I was working on Sunday of the PGA Championship (in 2011), and I had a special members event at the club,” Mark said. “So I just told everybody … ‘I’m not gonna be here when you get in (to the clubhouse). Get your scorecards turned in and signed and added up. I’m gonna go home and watch Keegan.’ I was home alone, watching it, and all the people in the tournament at the club were watching it there. And I guess it was a wild scene.”

He preferred to be on his own, standing in front of his TV, raising his arms in the air triumphantly. He didn’t say a word.

“No need to scream,” he said, “because there was no one there.”

It was an elusive dream to share that moment with his son. But Keegan’s PGA Championship was in 2011. He hasn’t won another major. Success on the PGA Tour is fickle. When he won the Zozo Championship in 2022, Mark missed it. When he won the Travelers Championship in 2023, Mark missed it.

Not this time. Father was with son for every step this week. And Keegan’s victory was relatively stress-free. First place was all but clinched after a remarkable five-iron shot to set up a birdie on the 17th hole. Even if the 18th was more of a nail-biter, Mark wouldn’t have been nervous.

“I stay way cool,” he said. “My dad was tough. He’d get nervous. He’d get mad. … When Keegan came along and my daughter, Madison, I just decided I’m gonna do it a different way. And that way was a little kinder, a little gentler, a little more, just: ‘Here’s a good grip.’ It never dawns on me to get mad. I’m blessed. I’m lucky. … I even make sure, if he stumbles, that I think about my posture as I’m walking along the fairway. And I’m not down here (hanging my head). I’m not kicking pine-combs like my dad. Whether (Keegan) sees that, I don’t know. But I’m not gonna change it.”

When Keegan potted one last easy putt Sunday, Mark raised his arms again to bask in the victory. This time, his son was mirroring the gesture back at him, not through a television screen, but in the flesh, waiting for an embrace.

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Top Wow Moments

• In the final pairing to tee off, Adam Scott was the lone man to eagle the par-5 first hole on Sunday. The Australian blasted a 386-yard drive in the fairway, hit a 3-wood to get on the green, and the drained an impressive 43-foot putt to jump-start his round.

• On the par-3 seventh, Tony Finau missed the green off the tee with a shot that was long and to the right in the intermediate rough. No worries: Finau hit a beautiful chip from 45 feet that landed just on the edge on the green, then rolled right into the cup.

• Wyndham Clark had the gallery on its feet and roaring on the par-3 11th. The Valor Christian alum’s tee shot didn’t roll out down to the hole. But he drained his 39-foot birdie putt on a downhill stroke that broke to the right, went straight and then back to the left.

Top Ugly Moments

• Austin Eckroat finished a tough tournament with a double bogey on the 18th. Eckroat hit his tee shot into the right bunker, then went long past the green from there and into the rough. Then he hit over the green and back into the fairway. A two-putt followed.

• The majestic 16th ate up Chris Kirk. The Tennessean left his tee shot way short, and it plopped into the water short of the green. His penalty shot from the drop area wasn’t very good either, as he put it 30 feet from the hole, and had a two-putt for double bogey.

• To cap a tough week for the world’s top-ranked golfer, Scottie Scheffler was even-par. He struggled mightily on the par-4 10th with a triple bogey. His second shot was wet, then he misfired again, going long off the green before chipping on for a two-putt.

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After entering the final day of the BMW Championship with a one-shot lead, Keegan Bradley played par golf on Sunday at Castle Pines Golf Club to finish 12-under par for the tournament — one stroke better than Sam Burns, Ludvig Åberg and Adam Scott.

The last man to qualify for the tournament at 50th on the FedExCup Playoffs rankings, Bradley rocketed up to No. 4 after becoming the 20th multiple-time winner in the event’s history.

Next up for the 2025 U.S. Ryder Cup captain: A chance to win the whole thing at next weekend’s Tour Championship in Atlanta.

“I’ve been in these (nail-biter) situations a lot, and I kept telling myself that,” said Bradley, who also won the BMW in 2018. “There were some guys on the leaderboard that hadn’t done that on the Tour, and I knew that was going to be tough for them.

“… I’ve come from behind and won, I’ve been ahead and won, and I just kept telling myself that I’ve been in these situations before and I’ve won and done it. Today was one of those days.”

The 38-year-old Vermont native played steady on a final tough day at the Castle Rock course. He birdied the opening hole, ripped off 13 straight pars after that, then worked around bogeys on the 15th and 18th with a birdie in-between on the 17th to close out his seventh career victory.

“I still feel like I’m in the prime of my career,” Bradley said. “I feel like there’s a lot of parts to my game that are the best it’s ever been, and I feel like I got years ahead of me — I’ve wanted to make this Ryder Cup team at Bethpage (Black) where I’m the captain. That’s always a goal of mine. I feel like I can still keep playing at a high level for a while.”

It became clear early on that Sunday would be another tough day at Castle Pines, which dried up over the weekend following a Friday littered with high scores following Thursday afternoon’s thunderstorm.

Both Bradley and Scott started in a groove as the final pairing. Scott opened with an eagle on the par-5 first, capped by a 43-foot putt. Bradley also birdied the hole, and the two were off and running.

The gallery, as it did all tournament, consistently cheered on Bradley with chants of “U.S.A.! U.S.A.!” as fans acknowledged the importance of his captainship as an active player.

While Bradley settled into a series of pars, Scott missed several birdie putts he’d want back. The 44-year-old Australian missed from nine feet out on the par-4 second, just barely missed a long 31-footer on the par-4 third, and then couldn’t hole a 13-footer on the par-4 fifth.

After a bogey on the par-4 sixth and a birdie on the par-5 eighth canceled each other out, Scott struggled to begin the back nine. He bogeyed three straight holes as Bradley churned out pars, giving the latter control of the leaderboard.

“Ten, 11, 12 kind of blew it for me there,” Scott said. “I was in position with wedges on every hole and made three bogeys. That’s almost unthinkable, really. And I definitely struggled on the greens on the weekend. Just didn’t quite have the confidence in some of those putts.”

Meanwhile, Sam Burns — who teed off nearly two hours before Bradley and Scott — went into the clubhouse as the leader at 11-under after firing a 7-under round. The 28-year-old recorded eight birdies and worked around a bogey on the par-5 14th for the best round of the day.

Burns nearly holed out from the pot bunker in front of the 18th green, but settled for par instead. His polished round featured Sunday’s best driving, as he ranked No. 1 in fairway accuracy by hitting 12 of 14, and elite putting. He was second with 133 feet of putts made.

After Burns’ bunker shot on the 18th rolled just by the hole and stopped 11 inches from the cup, Burns fell face-down on the edge of the sand, tossing his club as his hat came off.

“I knew it was a good line and I knew it was a pretty good weight. Sometimes they go in, sometimes they don’t,” Burns said. “Yeah, (my reaction) was a little dramatic.”

Bradley’s birdie on the par-5 17th gave him a two-stroke lead heading into the final hole. To make four on the 17th, Bradley hit a 232-yard five-iron to set him up for a look at eagle. His caddie, Scott Vail, called it “the best shot I’ve ever seen… right at the flag and it came down like a pitching wedge. It was so soft.”

His golfer agreed, saying the shot under pressure to help close out the tournament was “as pure of a golf shot as I’ve ever hit.” That’s high talk considering Bradley has a major win on his resume: the 2011 PGA Championship during his rookie season.

“It was a little downwind, but on the previous hole I hit 7-iron for 195 adjusted and it just went forever,” Bradley said. “I think I was a little jacked up. So we just decided to rip that 5-iron…  It’s one of those moments when you realize you can hit these shots in contention when it matters most, and to be able to pull that shot off — I mean, for me that was the shot of the tournament and a shot that I’ll remember forever.”

After Åberg finished with a par and Scott missed a birdie putt on the 18th that would’ve put pressure on Bradley, the captain two-putted from five feet out to secure the win. Then Bradley threw his arms into the air and hugged Vail and his dad, Mark Bradley, the director of instruction at Jackson Hole Golf and Tennis Club in Wyoming. It was the first time Mark had seen his son win in person.

Now, the guy who had his bags packed and a plane ticket booked to return home to Jupiter, Florida, last week — thinking he’d be out of the top 50 — is in position to possibly win the FedExCup Playoffs. He also put himself in the conversation for one of the captain’s picks for the U.S. Presidents Cup team, which is led by Jim Furyk.

“The goal for next week? Win,” Vail said. “Take advantage of it while you’re playing good… it doesn’t happen but six, eight times a year that you’re really on top of your game. Go out and win and get some work done next week.”

Bradley’s bubble boy-to-champion achievement capped the Tour’s triumphant return to Colorado for the first time since 2014 — and pro golf at Castle Pines since The International ended in 2006

The tournament proved the course’s extensive reshaping was effective in keeping some of the world’s best golfers in check.

“We did everything to this golf course (to get it ready for the PGA Tour),” Castle Pines Golf Club president George Solich said. “We largely redesigned five holes on the front and five holes on the back. We rebuilt every green, rebuilt every bunker complex, rebuilt every tee complex. We redid or added all the water features.

“And we added about 650 yards to make it (a PGA Tour record) 8,130. So we were ready. You don’t know until you hit Sunday how it will hold… some people said guys might hit 20-under, but I said no way.”

Solich said earlier this summer, he predicted the BMW Championship winner would be at 15-under.

Bradley’s winning score came in three shots under that, while the four-day scoring average for the field was 71.430, less than a stroke under par. Even the world’s No. 1-ranked golfer, Scottie Scheffler, struggled to 1-over par.

All told, more than 125,000 fans turned out to take it all in, according to Castle Pines officials.

“We have a lot of really strong golf fans in this state and it showed all week,” Solich said. “From Tuesday on, we broke every record for the BMW Championship for attendance. So to say we were a little bit golf-starved is an understatement. Cherry Hills was a wild success, but this is an even greater success.”

For Castle Pines, this year’s BMW Championship passed the litmus test to bring the tournament, or another PGA Event, back in the not-too-distant future.

“We were built for championship golf,” Solich said. “That’s what (late founder) Jack Vickers’ dream was, and he’s looking down on us with a big thumbs up. We’ll have the PGA Tour back — we don’t know in what form or when, but it’s too good a place for golf and too good of a theatre not to.”

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“As I keep telling people: For me, I was convinced there were some hanging chads on the carpet,” the local philanthropist and chairman of the BMW Championship, said of being inducted into the Caddie Hall of Fame, along with brother and fellow CU Buff George Solich, earlier this week. “And that someone was going to demand a recount.”

The Solich brothers — Duffy is president of Ponderosa Energy, George is CEO and chairman of Four Points Energy — grew up caddying at The Broadmoor in their native Colorado Springs.

The pair parlayed that into earning Evans Scholarships to CU and have been paying it forward ever since. The Soliches founded the Solich Caddie & Leadership Academy and the Broadmoor Caddie and Leadership Academy, two institutions that are responsible for 52 Evans Scholars.

“Getting (this) with my brother Duffy makes it an even greater honor because he kind of dragged me to the caddie yard when I was 12 years old,” George recalled. “He said, ‘This is a great job, we ought to go do it. And by the way, maybe you could get a college scholarship, too.’ So it means a ton.

“And ever since, the game of golf and caddying and all that kind of stuff has really enriched my life so much, that giving back to that and making sure the caddie programs are alive and well and healthy, making sure kids have the opportunity to go as far as they can go … it’s a really wonderful mission.”

George has another induction coming later this year: He’s slated to join the Colorado Golf Hall of Fame in December, along with luminaries such as Wyndham Clark.

“As an analogy to sports, which is sometimes overused, but George is a quarterback and is used to that kind of stuff, and is a leader and is someone that is out in front,” Duffy said, “and is probably one of the most dynamic, driven, inspiring people I know.

“I’m more of a pulling guard, OK? And a pulling guard gets things done, but they’re usually not out in front. So this has been, for me, a really unique experience. And to get honored from this organization, and looking at the men that have come before me, it was over-the-top. Very emotional.”

It’s been perceived that way by a majority of voices and pens outside Ball Arena, anyway. The Nuggets have been widely declared one of the losers of the NBA summer, owing to a combination of polarizing strategy, internationally staged inefficiency and plain awful luck.

Internally, that’s not how the front office views it. They’re aware of the dice they’ve cast, of course, most prominently in the avoidable sacrifice of Kentavious Caldwell-Pope and subsequent additions of Russell Westbrook and Dario Saric. KCP signed with Orlando for three years and $66 million, an offer the Nuggets chose not to equal despite possessing his Bird rights. But if the outcome is a marginally worse (but still elite) starting lineup traded for marginally better depth and lineup versatility, so be it, their philosophy dictates.

That’s especially true with other player retention efforts to consider, even after Jamal Murray. Aaron Gordon becomes extension-eligible starting Sept. 27. Christian Braun and Peyton Watson each have two years remaining on their rookie deals.

Flexibility for future spending is a critical fourth dimension on the chessboard, Kroenke explained Wednesday after the Gardner Heidrick Pro-Am.

“Once we knew that (Caldwell-Pope) was going to opt out and test the open market, we thought it would probably be pretty difficult to retain him,” he said when asked what the determining factor was in deciding what number to go to during KCP’s free agency. “We had some pretty good offers in that we thought made sense for us going forward, but when you hit the open market and there are teams that have space and there are teams that really need a certain skill set, (it’s difficult). We’ve been smart about how we’ve planned, and we think we have young players that can fill in to certain roles, and so we also have to think for the future in the new system.”

He speaks of the 1-year-old collective bargaining agreement, which the league is still breaking in. More specifically: the punitive competitive penalties associated with roster payroll passing the second tax apron.

“It’s much more relatable to the NHL style, even though the NBA’s not a pure hard cap,” Kroenke continued. “In the NHL, whenever you think about contracts and you start to plan, you have to think a year or two ahead. Because if you give up space, and you have to wind up getting off players to give up something you don’t want to give up, that’s not a good place to be. So we’re pretty excited about the group we’ve got — while also planning and keeping an eye on that future and making sure we have our flexibility to retain the guys we want to keep.”

A comparison of salary cap systems in the NBA and NHL spurs an obvious follow-up question: Should the expectation be that Nuggets ownership will not exceed the second apron going forward? Did the KCP situation set a precedent?

Does Kroenke see that second apron as a hard cap?

“Not necessarily,” he said. “But when you talk about our starting five, and you understand the rules of flexibility when you’re in that second apron, it’s a real juggling act. We call it, we’re spinning as many plates as we can, trying to keep those plates as stable as possible. But yeah, it was a different exercise (this offseason). … We were excited about the possibility of retaining (Caldwell-Pope), but we also knew that once he hit the open market, it was going to be something that we may have to step away from to preserve our future flexibility.”

In the meantime, back to the present state of the roster. Forfeiting KCP provided a small bit of immediate flexibility as well. The Nuggets were able to use the taxpayer mid-level exception to sign Saric, a viable backup center for Nikola Jokic. That was their most expensive move of the summer, but nowhere close to their buzziest.

That title belongs to Westbrook, a former MVP, future Hall of Famer and current bench player.

The post-Thunder era hasn’t always been graceful for Russ. Denver will be his fifth new uniform in six seasons. Twice during that span, he has been convoyed through Utah only for the Jazz to waive him so he could promptly sign with a new team (including this one).

At his best, though, every player in the league understands the jolt he can supply. And Kroenke is willing to engage in a little nostalgia.

“I got a chance to meet him for the first time right after he signed, and as I said to him, I’m very grateful that he’s on this side,” Kroenke said. “Because I’ve watched him kind of tear our hearts out for so many years in Oklahoma City, among other places. So he’ll be a really good person for us to have, both on and off the court, with some of the young guys who we’re expecting to take bigger roles this year. Russ has seen it all, in and around the NBA, so he’s gonna be a big part of who we are both in the locker room and on the court.”

Second apron fears aside, the Nuggets are nonetheless over the first apron for a second consecutive season. With all 15 roster spots occupied, any additions to the team at this point would require circumnavigating other CBA side effects to make a trade. DaRon Holmes’ season-ending Achilles injury granted Denver a disabled player exception worth $1.53 million, but that doesn’t make the first-round pick exempt from occupying a roster spot. To take, the Nuggets have to give.

“I think right now the roster’s pretty set for this year,” Kroenke said. “But you never know. Our eyes and ears are always open. The new rules are interesting, and how some of those trades work once you’re over the tax. But it was an eye-opener I think for a lot of teams this summer, in how some of the teams behaved.”

Four players are bunched up atop the leaderboard within two strokes of each other entering the final day of the BMW Championship, setting up a thrilling finish Sunday at Castle Pines Golf Club.

The 2025 U.S. Ryder Cup captain, Keegan Bradley, is in first at 12-under par. Right behind him is Adam Scott at 11-under, followed by Swedes Ludvig Åberg and Alex Noren, both at 10-under.

Bradley, the last man into the BMW Championship with the No. 50 FedExCup ranking, won the tournament in 2018 and is seeking his first victory this year. As the course reined in the golfers with steady gusts throughout the day, the 38-year-old’s round was up and down. He had four pars along with eight birdies and six bogeys.

He finished the day 2-under, highlighted by birdies on the par-5 17th and par-4 18th as he attempts to become the event’s 20th multiple winner.

“It was tough out there today,” Bradley said. “It was really windy, a lot of elevated tees that were into the wind, which makes it really tough. Proud of the way I fought today. I played some brilliant golf but I hit also some terrible shots, too.”

Saturday also brought a different vibe for Scott, who shot 9-under on Friday to set the course record along with Åberg, who accomplished the feat as well. Scott had only one bogey coming into the weekend, but the 44-year-old Australian’s Day 3 immediately got off to a rough start.

He hit his opening tee shot out of bounds, eventually resulting in a bogey. Then he double-bogeyed the par-4 3rd hole after hitting his drive into the water. All that momentum he built up over the prior two days was zapped, and he also bogeyed the par-3 4th en route to a 4-over score on the front nine.

“I kind of felt like I made a meal of (my round), and I didn’t feel like I did that much wrong,” Scott said. “A couple of drives were just not quite right, and a three-putt (on the 3rd), and all of a sudden I’m kind of chasing. I really struggled mostly on the greens today.

“They were just so different from yesterday’s round speed-wise and firmness and look and everything. Felt like I was on a different course almost, and I just battled that most of the round. The good shots I hit, I didn’t really get the reward.”

But Scott settled in a bit on the back, with a birdie on the par-3 11th after hitting his drive four feet from the cup. Then after a bogey on the par-5 14th, he got back on track with birdies on the par-3 16th (10-foot putt) and par-5 17th (six-foot putt) to finish his day 2-over.

“I’m in a good spot in the end of it to be one back,” said Scott, who made his American PGA Tour debut at The International in 2000.

Meanwhile, Åberg — a rising PGA Tour star who is 20 years Scott’s junior — also came back down to earth following his record round on Friday that put him in contention after he carded even par on Thursday.

The Swede started fast, with three birdies in the first five holes, but then found the rough on the 6th and 7th that led to consecutive bogeys. On the back nine, his momentum was also checked as he double-bogeyed the 11th after going into the water and then bogeyed the 13th. But he remained aggressive in his shot selection.

“I feel like in order to beat all these guys that are obviously such good golfers, you have to be aggressive and you have to take advantage of the chances, and you don’t do that by not being aggressive, with aggressive execution,” Åberg said. “I feel like (I’ve) been doing that quite well over the last few days, and hopefully I can do that again (on Sunday).”

Åberg found new life with an eagle on the par-5 14th that featured an impressive 34-foot birdie putt. He closed with four straight pars to finish 1-under.

“I hit a nice 5-iron on the green (on the 14th),” Åberg said. “Those putts you’re just trying to get up there somewhere, but luckily it went in.”

And Noren, who double-bogeyed the par-4 3rd after hitting into the water and followed that with a bogey on the par-3 4th, showed resolve like the rest of the top of the leaderboard. He entered the week No. 41 in the rankings but has continued his streak of solid play in a season where he has three top-10 finishes.

“I was 3-over after four holes,” said Noren, 42. “Then coming in 2-under, I’m extremely happy and proud of myself for not getting down.”

Valor Christian alum Wyndham Clark is also in contention entering Sunday after carding 3-under to move to 7-under for the tournament, in a tie for fifth with Xander Schauffele. Schauffele, the winner of two majors this season at The Open Championship and PGA Championship, can’t be counted out for another push on the final day. Neither can Clark, who has more experience at Castle Pines than the rest of the field and will have the hometown crowd behind him.

Among the players in the pole position, Bradley has six career wins on Tour, but none this year. Scott, the 2013 Masters champion and former world No. 1 a decade ago, has 14 career wins but no victories since the Genesis Invitational in 2020.

And Åberg has one career win, last year’s RSM Classic, while Noren has 13 top-five finishes but no victories in 182 events on Tour.

“These are the situations (all good players) like to be in,” said Åberg, who has a chance to become the first player since 2006 to win the BMW Championship in his tournament debut. “We like to be close to the lead coming down the last couple of holes.”

“Did you purposely wear Broncos colors?” I asked after his impressive third round at Castle Pines Golf Club.

“Yeah,” said Clark after a long pause. “I did.”

Like many of his decisions this week, it proved a good choice.

Clark walked off the 18th green at 7-under, nestled in fifth place, five shots behind leader Keegan Bradley. Clark had never played a PGA event in Colorado. Beginning in June, he appeared in commercials with John Elway and Peyton Manning and at a press conference to explain the importance of top golf — not Top Golf — returning to our state.

He became the face of the tournament, the guy to give out tips on where to eat, where to fly fish, where to do anything unique to this area. He has handled it with aplomb and patience. But then came the hard part: Figuring out how to handle the golf. You know, the reason he was here.

It wasn’t too long ago that Clark was known as a club chucker, a golfer with a temper. His talent was overshadowed by his anger and inconsistency. He found a fresh start at the University of Oregon — think of him as the golf team’s Bo Nix — but struggled to make the success translate on the tour.

He joined in 2017. He finally posted his first victory in May 2023 at the Wells Fargo Championship. Six weeks later, he won the U.S. Open.

This seemed inconceivable when he stammered off the course in Detroit in 2020 at the Rocket Mortgage Classic, injured, ineffective and seemingly incurable.

The prescription was finding the right team. More than five hours before he walked off 18 after carding a 69 on Saturday, Clark putted under the watchful eye of caddie John Ellis. His mental coach Julie Elion walked with him to the chipping station and then to the driving range. When he finished the round, family engulfed him outside the media interview tent.

This is the explanation for success. The lonely golfer walking up the fairway is a myth, the support system is always with him. And especially with Wyndham.

“It’s very important. It’s funny, it’s an individual sport and we are out there and you only see the player. But there’s a ton that goes on behind the scenes,” Clark said. “It’s the trainers, your family, your mental coach, your caddy, your putting coach, they have all helped me when things aren’t going good to get me out of that, and when they are going good they keep me in a great spot. They also keep me grounded.”

This was rarely more important than in the past three days. Everybody wants to come home. Until they do. It is difficult to be everything to everybody, then live up to the expectations that accompany the No. 5 ranking in the world.

Some go into radio silence. Turn off the phone. Birdies can be hard enough without worrying about tweets. Others find a focus that borders on an unhealthy obsession.

Forget Thursday’s rain. A tornado of love has been following Clark around the course, and he has put his arms around it. You know about Celtics NBA champion Derrick White — he’s walked 18 all three days — but Clark estimated he had 200 friends and family tracking his every swing. Suddenly, normal felt different. And there was no ignoring his pack. Many were wearing white caps with “Dub Club” in pink letters on the front and on the back “Play Big” — his late mother Lise’s slogan, and something she told Wyndham on her deathbed in 2013.

“I try to make eye contact as much as possible. Golf is so tough. Not that I am at this level, but I feel a little bit like Tiger and how he always had the most amazing fan support and he’d be walking through and everyone is pumping you up,” Clark said. “You get your levels raised up so much, it’s been really tough for me to calm down before I hit my next shot. But I feel like I have done a good job of it.”

The evolution of Clark has been televised. Golf is no longer heavy. Sure, there are bad shots, forgettable days. But there is a lightness to Clark that makes his transformation seem more rooted than the pines lining the course.

His goal this week was to enter Sunday in contention. It began to crystallize with three birdies on the front nine. He bogeyed 10, the type of shot that could have sent a younger Clark into a spiral. He steadied himself with six straight pars. It set up his best moment of the tournament.

The 17th seemed an unlikely place for an escape room. At least for Clark. But when you learn to control your mind and mood, the possibilities are endless. When Clark lofted his second shot 212 yards onto the green he celebrated with his arms in the air, an expression of relief.

“It’s a pretty easy hole and everyone is out here torching par 5s except for me,” Clark said. “I finally hit the fairway and green.”

He was thinking birdie. His putter was thinking bigger. Clark drained a 16-footer for an eagle that circled left like it was parking in a cul-de-sac, leading to an eruption of noise.

“The crowds have been awesome. I have had the juices flowing. And I was battling being the hometown kid, and the pressure that comes with that,” Clark said. “I haven’t been starting very well in tournaments, so it feels like I have overcome a lot of things.”

Clark has momentum. And he is managing the attention. When his round ended, Broncos quarterback Zach Wilson was in the clubhouse. And before he could scoot to his car, coach Sean Payton hollered hello to the hometown star. Clark acknowledged him, then returned to signing autographs and taking pictures.

The snapshot of Clark smiling was a reminder that regardless of what happens Sunday, this week has been a Wyn.

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“It’s different than watching it on TV,” Sofia Cary said, climbing the fairway toward the finish line at Castle Pines with her friend, Molly Schatz. Between them and their view of the clubhouse at the top of the hill was a sight that still seemed surreal, even after a few hours: the top-ranked golfer on the planet. Just a few yards ahead.

This is the joy of live sports, of course, even without a VIP pass. The talent, the craft, the intensity of a world-class athlete — it’s all easier to appreciate in person than it is via screen, depending on the view. So what was it that struck Cary and Schatz while witnessing Scottie Scheffler attack a golf course up close? The concentrated power of his tee shots? The precision of his putts? The sound off the club?

“Just all the walking,” Cary said. “I’m on JV. So I’m not used to doing 18 holes. Molly’s used to it.”

“No,” retorted Schatz (varsity). “This is really long.”

But rewarding, make no mistake. These two Lewis-Palmer High School juniors were shadows to Scheffler and Adam Hadwin during the third round of the BMW Championship on Saturday, thanks to a fortuitous phone call.

Kelly Hodge is a longtime LPGA teaching professional in the Colorado Springs area, coaching at Coronado High School and operating a club that attracts 40 to 50 girls every summer Wednesday. In the lead-up to the tournament, LPGA sponsor Chevron contacted her, asking if she had any pupils who would want to walk the course inside the ropes for a day.

“It was a huge deal,” Hodge said. “This doesn’t happen. It’s amazing. They donated $5,000 to my girls club so I could help girls that can’t afford to play. So now I’ve gotta go look for more girls.”

Four high schoolers had the red carpet rolled out Saturday to walk the course in pairs, including Schatz, who represents a full-circle moment for Hodge’s 30-year career fostering the local growth of girls golf. Schatz’s mother was one of her first students in Colorado Springs years ago. The two are friends now, and Hodge is Molly Schatz’s private instructor.

Molly has played for three years now, encouraged by her mom. She quickly developed an appreciation for the sport because of the friends it has introduced to her life. Cary is somewhat the opposite. She joined the high school team so that she could spend more time with her friends, and in the process learned that golf is “a very underrated sport.” When this opportunity came along?

“They couldn’t even sleep last night,” Hodge said.

Their excitement went in a blender and emerged as nervousness once Hadwin shook their hands at the start of the round. Once they were out on the course. Out in the open. The center of attention. Every teenager’s nightmare, more or less.

“It’s definitely awkward just being in the middle of a field,” Cary said, laughing.

The golf and the scenery were distracting enough to ease those nerves eventually. Not to mention the walking. Even Scheffler himself has commented on altitude being a challenge he has struggled to overcome in the past. He didn’t play his best round Saturday, shooting a 74 (2-over par). At 8,130 yards, Castle Pines is the longest course in PGA Tour history. Not quite the same stratosphere as the nine-hole JV rounds Cary is used to playing. Those will feel like nothing from now on.

“It’s been a really cool experience,” Schatz said.

One that will resonate even more with time, as one spectator preached to the girls from the other side of the rope during the 17th hole. In the short-term perspective of a high schooler, Saturday was “fun to hang out with friends and see some famous people,” Cary said.

In the long term?

“This will be just a lifetime memory for these girls,” Hodge said. “Who gets to do anything like this?”

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But not the good kind.

The world’s No. 2-ranked golfer banged his second shot off the wall of a pond that guards the green on the third hole. Wet and wild was not what he had planned.

Then his bogey putt rimmed out. His double bogey put him at 1-over for the tournament. Not exactly the start he wanted on Saturday — moving day on the PGA Tour.

“I kind of got gusted, I think, on three,” Schauffele said, referring to the wind that blew across Castle Pines Golf Club. “I hit an 8-iron that … got like 25 yards of hurt, which we haven’t had all week.

“I kind of was posing (after his swing), and it was a little embarrassing for that thing to hit the wall and go in the water 20 yards off (the green). I felt like I had to dig deep in my little patience bucket that’s running thin this late in the year on a Saturday.”

But Schauffele persisted, birdied seven of his last 12 holes, and shot a 5-under 67, the day’s second best score behind Max Greyserman. That left him at 7-under for the tournament, tied for fifth with Colorado native Wyndham Clark heading into Sunday’s final round. They sit five strokes behind leader Keegan Bradley.

While Schauffele moved in one direction, Adam Scott went in another.

After shooting a 9-under, course-record 63 on Friday to stake a three-shot lead, the Australian shot 74 on Saturday to slide back to the field. He sits in second, one stroke behind Bradley.

Scott shot a 4-over 40 on the front side but birdied the 11th, 16th and 17th to salvage his round.

“I really struggled mostly on the greens today,” he said. “They were just so different from yesterday’s round, speed-wise and firmness and look and everything.

“It felt like I was on a different course almost, and I just battled that most of the round. The good shots I hit, I didn’t really get the reward. I’m in a good spot at the end of it to be one back.”

Clark was the other big mover and shaker on Saturday, scoring an eagle on the Par-5 17th hole as the hometown gallery went wild.

“I have not played that hole well,” he said. “It’s a pretty easy hole, and everyone is torching the par-5s except for me. I finally hit the fairway and then we hit the green. Our goal was to just kind of put it in a spot where we could make birdie. Obviously, an eagle is a bonus.”

Sweden’s Ludvig Åberg, who shot a 63 on Friday, found Castle Pines to be a different animal on Saturday, and he shot a 1-under 71, leaving him two shots behind Bradley.

“It was hard. It was sneaky hard. The wind was tricky,” he said. “Obviously, those first couple of holes were straight into (the wind), so they played very different from what they played yesterday.

“Plus the greens were firmer today, as well, from not having that much rain. It was tricky, and you could see that on the scores today, but I felt like we hung in there quite well.”

Schauffele, in particular. Though his patience was tested early, he’s learned how to deal with the tide of negative emotions. That’s how he won the PGA and The Open championships earlier this season.

“I just feel this thing rising in me that I don’t want to forcefully push down, but you can kind of tell when you’re being tested out here,” he said. “When you’re playing really good golf, things go your way, and it’s easy to brush off bad things.

“When you’re trying to sort of force it a little bit and things aren’t going your way, then it gets frustrating, and then when you start playing good golf and hitting good shots and you hit it in the water … you’ve got to dig deep sometimes.”

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