CASTLE ROCK — Twenty years before they rekindled a friendship in Europe, the Euro step was a controversial subject between rivals Wyndham Clark and Derrick White.
They played for opposing youth basketball teams in the Denver area, first matching up around the third grade. Both were point guards. White guarded Clark. Clark guarded White. White was a little more advanced than his peers — little did they know, he was a future NBA champion and Olympic gold medalist — and at some point during the mid-2000s, he implemented an unfamiliar move to his game. It was just beginning to get popular in the pros.
“He was doing the Euro step at a young age,” Clark remembers, “and our whole team kept thinking it was traveling. So every time he would do the Euro step, all our dads and everyone was like, ‘That’s a travel!’ And they would never call it.
“Fast forward to next year, and we’re all doing the same thing.”
White was teaching Clark new tricks on the basketball court. Now it’s finally Clark’s turn to return the favor on the golf course. He’s the fifth-ranked golfer in the world, the winner of the 2023 U.S. Open and the fan favorite this weekend at the BMW Championship. Valor Christian High School, Class of 2012. White is a two-time All-Defensive Team honoree in the NBA, a glue guy for the Boston Celtics and Team USA, and a Clark groupie this weekend. Legend High School, Class of ’12.
White has never played golf or gotten invested in the sport, “but I’m gonna start,” he declared while walking the first fairway at Castle Pines Golf Club on Thursday. He walked all 18 holes in support of his former basketball foe, who was paired with Rory McIlroy.
“It’s fun because he’s kind of new to golf, and so (he) got his real first experience of pro golf at the Olympics, watching and walking with us,” Clark said. “And he really has the bug. We’ve been talking about it. He’s like, ‘I love it so much.’ It was really cool to have him out there.”
Clark finished his first round at even par, but that doesn’t even begin to tell the story. He endured a hectic back nine that included multiple shots into the water and multiple double-bogeys. And that was before a cartoonishly timed lightning delay forced him and McIlroy to wait more than three hours to complete their final putts on the 18th hole. Spectators (even White) had vacated the premises by the time they resumed.
“I was hoping it was going to be one of those quick Colorado 30-minute storms, but there was another one behind it,” Clark lamented. “Definitely a bummer being here for three hours.”
Before that awkward conclusion without a crowd, Clark had been treated to resounding applause throughout the afternoon. Coloradans who noticed White gave him some love, too. He was hard to miss during the first hole, cradling the Larry O’Brien Trophy as he strolled downhill. Whether it was Boston’s Larry or Denver’s from the previous year, though, is unclear. The trophy was also on display Wednesday during the pro-am event, which featured Nuggets president Josh Kroenke.
“I didn’t even know it was gonna be here,” a confused White said, starting to regret his decision to lug Larry along. “I’m really just here to support Wyndham and cheer him on. … I didn’t know it was gonna be here. I was walking in, and I see it on the ground, and I’m like, ‘Let me hold that.’”
His opportunity to reacquaint with Clark this summer was truly last-second. Kawhi Leonard’s withdrawal from Team USA opened a roster spot two weeks before the Paris Olympics. White was the first choice to fill in. He flew solo to Abu Dhabi, UAE, to join the team for its remaining exhibition games, and soon enough he was floating down the Seine with Clark at the opening ceremony.
“(We had) big battles. Big rivalry on the court,” White said. “And then obviously he went and did big things, so it was great reconnecting. And we ended up on the boat in the Olympics.”
“Hanging out in Paris was pretty cool,” Clark said, grinning.
They reminisced. Decades-old matchups on hardwood aged into shared laughs. Their youth teams always seemed to face off in the championship game. “Wyndham was good,” White says, but he insists that his squad, the Dolphins, won more. Clark even played some high school ball at Valor, where he was classmates with NFL star Christian McCaffrey.
“It’s really neat to see kind of Colorado sports coming on the map with Derrick, myself and Christian and some of the other Olympians,” Clark said earlier this week. “It’s a good thing for Colorado. I feel like the sports are in a good spot here.”
When the horn blared indicating a weather stoppage, McIlroy was frozen mid-backswing on the 18th green. (“I knew it was close, and I kind of wanted Rory to speed up,” the local weather expert Clark said later, laughing.) Patrons vacated the course for a nearby covered area outside the clubhouse, where White held court. Colorado golf fans approached him for photographs and autographs. He posed and signed graciously for about 20 minutes. Then a golf cart arrived and he shipped off, leaving his old rival to wait out the storm.