After demolishing a locker at last year’s US Open, Wyndham Clark has returned to his national championship intent on destroying this major field.

The 2023 winner pulled further clear on seven-under after a second-round 69 on Friday. Clark, the 32-year-old from Denver, is four clear of countrymen Sam Stevens and Xander Schauffele and England’s Matt Fitzpatrick and looking in calm control.

Quite the contrast, then, to 12 months ago. Clark was so incensed after missing the cut at Oakmont in this tournament, he pathetically stormed into the clubhouse and proceeded to use a club to take his frustrations out on a locker that was more than a century old.

It was ruined and Oakmont, the proud and revered Pittsburgh club, was understandably not impressed, soon announcing that Clark was banned and that if he ever wanted to play there again, he first had to foot the bill, make a donation to charity and enrol in an anger management course. What made it worse was that Clark was not initially fulsome in his apology. 

However, wouldn’t you know it, after so much bad publicity, he was contrition personified here after a round featuring three birdies and two bogeys.

“I’ve gotten a lot of grief since last year, rightfully so,” Clark said. “The thing that’s unfortunate is that’s not who I am. I’m hoping I can win back the fans… because it was a terrible incident. You know, I really feel like I can show people that I’m fun and outgoing, I’m fierce, competitive, love the game, respect the game, and I just had a bad moment. I definitely feel like I’m in a better place now.”

In truth, Clark was hardly an angel before his Pennsylvania paroxysm. He was decidedly chippy in the build-up to his 2023 Ryder Cup debut when he basically declared he wanted to face Rory McIlroy in the singles. “I like to think I am better than him and I want to prove that,” Clark said.

Well, he had fended off McIlroy at that year’s US Open at LA Country Club. He won a couple more events and broke into the world’s top three at the beginning of 2024, but then inexplicably lost his way.

“I was on top of the world in my game when I won the US Open and then the next thing, I’m apologising for breaking a locker,” he said. “With the mental game there are big ebbs and flows. Right now I’m trending back up, which is nice.”

Clark might be tough to stop on a track which will only get tougher as it firms up. Yet McIlroy is in the hunt on level par and has a lot of motivation, and Fitzpatrick sounded full of self-belief after his 70, which was highlighted by a birdie on the 18th.

“Even if I had finished with a par, I’d have been happy, in a nice position going into the weekend,” he said. “You can’t ask for too much more really. There are a couple of things I want to hopefully clean up for the weekend to feel a little bit more confident, but on the whole, it’s been, yeah, a really good two days.”

Fitzpatrick has enjoyed a spectacular year, rising to world No 4 courtesy of three PGA Tour wins as well as a second at The Players and another runner-up finish in Canada last week.

“I’ve always had belief in myself with what I can achieve,” he said. “But I am definitely more confident now than I was at the start of the year.” And was he delighted by what he discovered when arriving here at the notorious Long Island layout, where in the five previous US Opens it has staged, only three players have broken par after 72 holes.

“I really thought it was going to be way more severe, almost unplayable,” Fitzpatrick said. “I was here [in May] before the Memorial. It literally was gusting 45 miles an hour, and the 11th green would not hold the ball. It didn’t matter where I put it, it would not hold the ball. Part of me was kind of expecting that.”

That could still come to pass, but Fitzpatrick has the game and the attitude to cope as he tries to win a second major and, for his country, collect what would be the third leg of a potential “UK Slam” after the triumphs of McIlroy and Aaron Rai in the Masters and US PGA, respectively.

Niemann hit with two-shot penalty for throwing club

Two-time major-winner Collin Morikawa shot a 65 to reach two-under to stay in the hunt, with Joaquin Niemann also firing a five-under round. This was a remarkable fightback from the Chilean after what befell him earlier in the day.

Niemann, who is an eight-time winner on LIV but has as yet failed to bring this form to the majors, was told that his behaviour on the sixth hole (his 15th) the previous evening had resulted in a two-shot penalty for “serious misconduct”.

There was no video footage, but it emerged that after slicing two drives out of bounds, he had argued with a referee who would not give him a drop for what he claimed were fire ants near his third ball and after kicking away the white flag the ball-spotter had put down to show where his ball had finished, he threw his club approximately 50 yards. Niemann did not bother to go back and fetch it and it was left to a police officer to collect it and hand it back to the irate golfer.

Inevitably, after his quintuple-bogey nine on the par four was upgraded to a septuple-bogey 11, social media was ablaze with accusations of “two tier officiating”, bringing up instances when big names had escaped punishment for similar misdemeanours. 

Last year, for instance, McIlroy had hurled a club at Oakmont. But that was before the majors got together at the start of this season and agreed to enforce a new “code of conduct”. Niemann thus made history as the first golfer to pay on his scorecard for bad behaviour. In that sense he is unlucky, but the participants were warned this could happen.

Credit to Niemann for holding up his hands. “I got pretty frustrated, but I’m not someone that likes to behave like that. That was misbehavior on my part. I felt a little bit extra penalised with a two-shot penalty, but it is what it is. I think I’m going to learn from it. It definitely helped me to have a better round today.”

It was not a good day for LIV as it continues to look for investors to fund its survival after the Saudis announced they were pulling their funding – which has so far amounted to more than $5bn (£3.7bn) – at the end of the season. The league’s two biggest names, Bryson DeChambeau and Jon Rahm, both missed the cut after struggling to a 75 and 78, respectively.