West Babylon's TJ Clark comes late to golf but makes up for lost time
Tyler Clark of West Babylon hits from the 6th tee during the Suffolk High School Boys Golf Individual state qualifier at the Rock Hill Golf and Country Club on October 30th, 2019. Credit: Daniel De Mato
The first five years of the journey have been pretty remarkable. Where it ends up taking TJ Clark certainly bears watching.
Clark was only 12 when he got his first taste of golf. It was at Heartland Golf Park near the Deer Park Long Island Rail Road station where the course is nine holes, all par-3s. Nevertheless, the West Babylon product was completely smitten.
Today, the 17-year-old junior might just be Long Island golf’s next big thing.
"I invited him to come along with myself and some friends," his father, Nick Clark, said. "He had liked playing other sports, especially baseball, but that day he got hooked for life . . . He didn’t play that great but when the round was over, he immediately wanted to play the course again."
"That was pretty much the introduction and I fell in love with it," TJ Clark said. "As I got better, the first goal was to beat my father, but he never let me win. But I knew I wanted to ultimately try to be great at it."
So far, so good. Clark now plays in tournaments against many of the nation’s top teenagers and is a scratch golfer.
"In the 2½ years I’ve been working with him, he’s gone from a rail thin kid struggling to break 90 to someone bound to play in college," said Tim Shifflett, the pro at Glen Oaks in Westbury who serves as Clark’s swing coach. "There’s a ton of talent there . . . and he has a chance to break par every time out."
Clark has a life unlike most high school athletes. The past few years, when school began, he attended West Babylon and plays for the Eagles’ boys golf team (though not this past fall as the sport was postponed by the coronavirus pandemic). In January he packs to spend the remainder of the school year at the IMG Academy in Bradenton, Florida, where he lives in a dorm, is on a meal plan, takes classes, trains and plays with a number of the country’s elite.
He explained that his dorm room is not far from a putting green, a chipping green and a driving range, making it a smooth to transition from class to athletics and back.
"When I first got here, I was a freshman and I wasn’t sure if I’d like it and feel comfortable," Clark said in a telephone interview from Bradenton. "Now, I love it."
That freshman year in Bradenton was far from perfect. Away from home, he struggled in the classroom. It was enough so that his parents didn’t let him go back for his sophomore year and only let him return in January because, as Nick Clark said, "We feel he is mature enough now to handle everything away from home."
Asked about the kind of progress he’s made attending IMG, Clark cites some of golf’s advanced metrics. His club head speed has improved from 95 mph as a freshman to 113 mph today, so off the tee his ball consistently goes 280 yards despite being a little harder to control. And his short game? He said that in his most-recent tournament round, he putted just 29 times.
When he last played for West Babylon, Clark finished fifth in the 2019 Suffolk County individual championships by shooting 77 at Rock Hill in the last round. "That was good for my [sophomore] year, but today I’m not too happy when I finish with a 77," he said. "Getting to train as much as I do now and being competitive to go against this level of competition has helped me improve my game pretty quickly."
One thing that Clark can do nothing about against the competition at IMG is turn back the clock. Many of the student-athletes at the academy began playing golf at extremely young ages. As a result, their natural talent has been developing for a longer period of time and they have more experience.
"I can only do what I can do about that," he said. "I try to make up for it with my work ethic and my attitude and enthusiasm for the game. [One] would be surprised what those things can do to help a player who came to it late to catch up."
"Desire and work ethic can make up for a lost [time] in golf," Shifflett said. "There is more to golf than just talent."
Clark’s college recruiting picture is only starting to develop. Since the start of the pandemic, collegiate coaches have not been permitted to do in-person evaluations of players. As a result, most Division I coaches only have seen video of him. They will be permitted to attend tournaments beginning June 1.
"The road I’d ultimately want to take is getting a Division I scholarship somewhere, crushing it and then going pro," Clark said. "I know that doesn’t happen for everyone or even most players. But even if it doesn’t happen for me, I’ve found something I love in golf. I imagine spending my life doing something related to golf."
Roger Rubin returned to Newsday in 2018 to write about high schools, colleges and baseball following 20 years at the Daily News. A Baseball Hall of Fame voter since 2011, he has covered 13 MLB postseasons and 14 NCAA Final Fours.
