Monday Scramble: A designated-event snoozer, Cantlay’s caddie change, and

Wyndham Clark blows away the field at Quail Hollow, Joe LaCava finds a new boss, Rory McIlroy returns, LIV golfers continue to complain and more in this week’s edition of the Monday Scramble:

There finally was a snoozer of a designated event – all thanks to some sublime golf from Wyndham Clark.

The 29-year-old Clark had been trending toward his first PGA Tour victory, but much was unsettled as he came to the first tee with a two-shot lead Sunday at the Wells Fargo Championship. Then came a nervy opening bogey and a tidy first 90 minutes from Xander Schauffele, and all of a sudden Clark, was trailing by the time he arrived at No. 8.

But Clark’s nifty up-and-in on the drivable par 4 – “that really loosened me up” – kickstarted a run in which he eventually turned a one-shot deficit into a five-shot advantage. He played Quail Hollow’s watery closing stretch with nary a concern, which would have seemed unthinkable at the start of the day, with the world No. 5, Tyrrell Hatton, and major champions Adam Scott and Justin Thomas all in pursuit.

Clark has had a handful of close calls this year, most notably in the Dominican Republic, and he recalled having several difficult conversations with his team about whether he really had the goods to win on Tour. It wasn’t the first time he doubted his skills: In college, he contemplated giving up the game, after his mother died of breast cancer. Clark transferred from Oklahoma State to Oregon, if only for a change of scenery, and then posted a player-of-the-year season to surge into the pros with confidence. Now in his fifth Tour season, he’s finally a winner and inside the top 50 in the world for the first time.

“I’ve dreamt about this since I was probably 6 years old,” he said afterward. “Since I’ve been on the PGA Tour, you fantasize about it all the time, and I’ve done it multiple times this year, where I catch myself daydreaming about winning. And to do it at this golf course, against this competition, is better than I could ever have imagined.”

Three other items from a busy week at Quail Hollow:

• Clark’s victory, as the 80th-ranked player in the world, bucked the trend of top players getting it done in the designated events. Even when Kurt Kitayama won at Bay Hill, he was being hunted most closely by Rory McIlroy, Scottie Scheffler and Jordan Spieth. In Clark’s case, it was Schauffele who had the best chance to take him down.

Assembling the best players in the world together has been a smashing success, but we were due for a dud. Here’s the world ranking of the previous designated-event winners:

• Jon Rahm: No. 5
• Scheffler: 2
• Rahm: 3
• Kitayama: 46
• Scheffler: 2
• Sam Burns: 15
• Rahm: 3
• Matt Fitzpatrick: 16

• In a surprising move, world No. 4 Patrick Cantlay changed caddies, switching from Matt Minister (a year and a half removed from their Player of the Year season) to Joe LaCava. The decision reveals more about Cantlay and LaCava…