Heading into the final round of the 2014 RBC Canadian Open at Royal Montreal Golf Club on Sunday, it appeared a pretty safe bet that a four-year PGA Tour winless drought was going to be expunged. And congrats, the probable did occur…only Jim Furyk wasn’t the man for the job.

Tim Clark, who began three shots back of 54-hole leader Furyk, fired a 5-under-par 67 on Sunday, nipping the leading man by a stroke in the end for a victory. The charge early was slow, but a five-birdie flourish on the back half did the trick.

It was Clark’s second career PGA Tour win, and first since his title at the 2010 Players Championship.

For Furyk, it was just another taste of bitterness in what has proven to be a quite successful, but salty four years. The 44-year-old nabbed three titles, including the season-ending Tour Championship, in 2010, along with the FedEx Cup crown. Ever since, the surge for career PGA Tour victory No. 17 has been potent, but heartbreakingly inept.

With Sunday’s failure, it marks the seventh consecutive time Furyk failed to capitalize on a 54-hole lead in a PGA Tour event. That’s right, Furyk had a down year in 2011 but from the beginning of 2012 until the present he was atop the leaderboard with 18 holes to go seven times and never came out victorious. His solo second at this week’s Canadian Open is his sixth runner-up in this span and ninth top-three.

Again, none of those were wins.

Enough about the woeful tales of a rich and highly successful major champion. Clark is the one in the winner’s circle.

Here we offer a closer look at possibly the most underappreciated product of South Africa’s golfing factory:

Short Man, Long on Heart

Clark isn’t exactly the model the mind concocts when the term “professional athlete” arises from the lips. The Durban, South Africa native stands just 5-feet 7-inches and weighs a none-too-exciting 165 pounds.

If a guy like Luke Donald can post this season though, you know there is room for the average-Joe looking Clark to accomplish great things in this game.

And he has. This is his second PGA Tour win, one of which is the Players Championship, and he overall owns 12 official professional titles. He was a fixture in the Top 50 of the World Golf Rankings from 2005 to 2010 and even peaked into the top-20 for a time.

It is a study in maximizing ability. Clark’s mentality is that of an underdog, understandable enough when he gives up at least 30 yards off the tee to the game’s biggest hitters. Then tack on the fact that a forearm disability makes chipping and pitching more difficult, and you really start to see his point of view.

The disadvantages though, as they are wont to do at times, have turned Clark into a fighter. To overcome his physical shortcomings, he possesses one of the sport’s most envied mental games. He has what Stuart Appleby once called an “I’m-going-to beat-you” slant to his play, and he claws and claws even when the light at the end of the tunnel seems to be fading away. Heck, Gary Player, undoubtedly one of the most determined golfers in the record books, coined Clark with the nickname “The Bulldog,” a moniker that has unsurprisingly stuck considering the mold of a competitor we are dealing with.

Clark’s mind isn’t the only weapon here though. For short drivers of the ball, there’s always inherently that key weakness of length. The dearth of leeway this engenders means these types of players must beef up their strengths to the max in order to thrive.

And Clark is one of the best in the game at that.

Whatever trouble Clark’s body gives him on shots around the green, he has deft touch and uses it to its full extent. He’s consistently one of the PGA Tour’s best short-game players, which becomes especially important when you consider that he is historically an average putter. Players of Clark’s length usually can’t be competitors of any note if they don’t excel in either of these areas.

The 38-year-old succeeds with his full wedges too and overall is a force with his irons. The Greens In Regulation numbers for Clark aren’t too impressive, but when you turn to Proximity to Hole, where he is usually the odds on favorite to lead the category, you get what I mean.

Most of all though, Clark is an elite driver of the golf ball despite his massive distance dilemma. In his earlier years, he was respectably accurate off the tee, but since 2009, Clark’s lowest finish in driving accuracy on the PGA Tour is fifth. His lowest finish.

He’s also never placed worse than 17th in the Distance from the Edge of the Fairway metric since its inception in 2008.

Really, Clark counteracts his distance shortcoming with an insane degree of accuracy everywhere else. Not exactly a shocking course of action here, but incredibly tough to execute.

The only hitch is the putter. Clark seems to get a reputation as a good roller of the rock, but if he were truly that, he might be a superstar player.

Nonetheless, it adds up to a very solid career and a very solid competitor that gets overlooked.

Clark’s breakthrough win and subsequent struggles

Clark was a three-time All-American at North Carolina State, but sticking with the underdog tale, he cut his teeth on the professional level in the minor league circuit.

In his second campaign on the Web.com Tour, in the year 2000, Clark won twice and placed third on the money list, more than enough to secure his PGA Tour card.

And he never lost the sucker.

Clark did not face the much-dreaded Q-School trip in the intervening years, and, while unspectacular, was a pretty safe bet to earn at least $1 million on course per season. The South African won some events on other circuits and had three top-three finishes in major championships during the first decade of the 21st century, but still received relatively muted name recognition during this time.

But nobody could ignore a Players Champion, and that’s exactly what Clark became in 2010 when he posted a 5-under 67 on the final day to grab the crystal. While stunning for a player to get his first PGA Tour win at the so called “Fifth Major,” Clark’s previous record, which included eight runner-up finishes on the PGA Tour alone, ensured that this victory was no shot out of left field.

It appeared the full on recognition for his game was about to arrive, then Clark got injured. Problems with his elbow sidelined him for much of the 2011 season until he ended it all together with surgery in August. He competed in four PGA Tour events for the year. Of course with injuries involving surgeries, it’s not just the year lost but the time needed to adjust as well. Clark played fine golf in 2012 and 2013 but still seemed to be trying to recover his previous form.

That process waded into 2014 and Clark’s victory this week may be the first real sign that he has cracked the code for returning to his former top-50 play.

In his peak years, he was usually good for about five top-10s and double digits top-25s per PGA Tour campaign. It remains to be seen if he’s that guy again, or possibly better, but this was one step in the right direction.

Clark and Anchored Putting

It may seem so long ago, but only last year was the golfing world in a fierce debate over the decision to ban the anchored putting stroke. And Clark was one of the most vocal critics against the ban.

Like other pros, the 38-year-old certainly held the gripe that his years and years of perfecting his putting with the anchored motion went down the drain because of this decision (Clark turned to the long putter in the middle of his college career). However, Clark’s main claim came with brutal force: He was unable to effectively use a short putter.

As mentioned before, Clark has a disability in his forearms. More specifically, the issue deals with a lack of supination in these parts, a development that prevents Clark from tucking his elbows in, something pretty essential to good results with a short putter.

It leads to some funny stories, but was no laughing matter when the anchored ban, in Clark’s words, threatened his livelihood. Clark gained much support from his fellow players by vocalizing his story about his disability at a players meeting in January 2013. He was also one of nine golfers ready to file suit against the USGA and R&A’s decision if the PGA Tour Policy Board voted in favor of keeping the anchored stroke.

Of course, the exact opposite happened, and the players dropped the potential legal battle. Clark is still unclear on what stroke he will move to when the ban becomes real on Jan. 1, 2016. He’s not adverse to funky solutions, sidesaddle for instance, but the decision remains far away.

What This Win Means Going Forward

Sorry to frustrate you, but the answer to Tim Clark’s golfing future is very unclear. In both of Clark’s PGA Tour wins, his putter has been a tremendous asset. He was second in the field this week in strokes gained putting at +1.621 strokes per round, and posted a +2.334 per round mark in his Players Championship triumph. Yet, he’s never proven consistently capable with the flatstick, and the 2016 putting switch doesn’t promise to be a seamless transition.

If Clark can navigate the roughs waters of the impending ban, he could be on his way to once again performing at a quasi-elite level. He absolutely has the game to win a major championship, with the U.S. Open generally being his best chance to do so. And if he ever figures out how to become a great putter, he could be one of the premier golfers in the world.

Clark’s future is still bright. It’s unlikely he’ll truly ever get the respect he deserves, but he can still bask in the glow of a highly respectable career.

Click here to see Clark’s Winning WITB.