On a sunny January afternoon at Palm Springs, California, a 20-year-old stood on the fairway of the 18th hole of the La Quinta Golf Club, contemplating the most important golf shot of his life. A few minutes earlier, Nick Dunlap – a sophomore at the University of Alabama – had flared his drive right, and the ball had come to rest just short of a mound in the first cut. Lucky to have a clear approach to the green Dunlap stood there, mulling over his options: he needed to hit a shot that would carry at least 200 yards to clear the greenside bunker, give him a realistic chance to save par, and win his first PGA Tour event. A daunting situation, to put it mildly.
Word had gotten around: the internet had been abuzz since the time Dunlap had teed it up for the final round at the 2024 American Express golf tournament. Around the world, golf fans watched from the edge of their seats, Dunlap pulled out an eight-iron and took aim.
In case you’re wondering, the unprecedented interest in the tournament went beyond Dunlap and had little to do with the relevance of the event. It was about what Dunlap was on the cusp of achieving – a PGA Tour win by an amateur golfer – for the first time in 33 years.
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The right track to growth: Infrastructure is key driving force for realising India’s vision of $40 trillion economy by 2047 Meanwhile, another plot had unfolded. In the group ahead of Dunlap, trailing the leader by two strokes, Christiaan Bezuidenhout had made a miraculous birdie on the last. The lead was down to a solitary stroke, something Dunlap realised only when he reached his ball on the 18th fairway. A bogey would pitch him into a playoff.
Dunlap hit his approach and almost immediately shouted, ‘Fore!’. Like the drive, his approach had gone way right. The ball hit a spectator to the right of the green and trickled down into a greenside trough. Dunlap had got two consecutive lucky breaks. He made the most of it too: a nerveless chip to within six feet followed by a putt that never left the hole, Nick Dunlap had become the first amateur since Phil Mickelson in 1991 to win a PGA Tour event.
“Honestly, I felt the script today was already written,” he said at the post-round presser. “I was going to give it everything I had. Whether that’s I shoot 75 or 65 or 70, I just was going to give it everything I had.” He admitted that he didn’t know about how close it was while he was playing the last. “I wasn’t (thinking I had a one-shot lead)… “I thought I had a two-shot lead.” Did that release the pressure a bit? No question about it. But it could have gone either way for Dunlap, who, in the wake of his victory took time out away from all the attention to contemplate his future. The win brings with it full-time PGA Tour membership through the 2026 season and invites into lucrative events (next month’s AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am has a purse of close to $20 million). Dunlap withdrew from last week’s Farmers Insurance Open to evaluate his options and came to the decision that the time was here for him to join the big boys on the pro circuit. As an amateur, he’s already forfeited the winner’s cheque of $1.5 million at The American Express; no one will fault him for not wanting to lose any more of his potential earnings this year.
It’s never a good idea to try and predict a career based on one result. But it seems safe to assume that this was no flash in the pan. Dunlap had already matched Tiger Woods’ feat of winning the US Junior Amateur and the US Amateur. And now he stands alone as the only amateur to have won those and a PGA Tour event.
Jim Dunlap can keep a straight face. After his son’s historic triumph, Dunlap Sr was asked by an interviewer to identify the moment he realised that his son–Nick Dunlap–might be ‘…something special.’ He didn’t have to think hard. “He was always good at sports. I realised he had the potential to do something when he shot a 59 at age 12…” he replied smugly. That pretty much triggered something in me…”
Think about that for a minute: a course-record-setting 11-under 59 at the Highland Park Golf Course in Birmingham at the age of 12, to win an event by 13 strokes. The last time a player was in the news for winning by 13 strokes was at the 2014 Senior Open, and the player could have only been the inimitable Bernhard Langer. The 65-year-old became the oldest player to win a major on the Champions Tour when he won the 2023 US Senior Open. The German has five victories after turning 64–something unequalled in the history of the Tour. Even though he shows no signs of hanging up his boots, Langer recently announced that the 2024 Masters Tournament will be his last appearance at Augusta. He’s missed the cut last three times and Langer clearly isn’t interested in playing unless he has a chance to win. Could he possibly pull off a miracle The Masters? That sounds about as preposterous as an amateur winning a PGA Tour event.
On a sunny January afternoon at Palm Springs, California, a 20-year-old stood on the fairway of the 18th hole of the La Quinta Golf Club, contemplating the most important golf shot of his life. A few minutes earlier, Nick Dunlap – a sophomore at the University of Alabama – had flared his drive right, and the ball had come to rest just short of a mound in the first cut. Lucky to have a clear approach to the green Dunlap stood there, mulling over his options: he needed to hit a shot that would carry at least 200 yards to clear the greenside bunker, give him a realistic chance to save par, and win his first PGA Tour event. A daunting situation, to put it mildly.
Word had gotten around: the internet had been abuzz since the time Dunlap had teed it up for the final round at the 2024 American Express golf tournament. Around the world, golf fans watched from the edge of their seats, Dunlap pulled out an eight-iron and took aim.
In case you’re wondering, the unprecedented interest in the tournament went beyond Dunlap and had little to do with the relevance of the event. It was about what Dunlap was on the cusp of achieving – a PGA Tour win by an amateur golfer – for the first time in 33 years.
Meanwhile, another plot had unfolded. In the group ahead of Dunlap, trailing the leader by two strokes, Christiaan Bezuidenhout had made a miraculous birdie on the last. The lead was down to a solitary stroke, something Dunlap realised only when he reached his ball on the 18th fairway. A bogey would pitch him into a playoff.
Dunlap hit his approach and almost immediately shouted, ‘Fore!’. Like the drive, his approach had gone way right. The ball hit a spectator to the right of the green and trickled down into a greenside trough. Dunlap had got two consecutive lucky breaks. He made the most of it too: a nerveless chip to within six feet followed by a putt that never left the hole, Nick Dunlap had become the first amateur since Phil Mickelson in 1991 to win a PGA Tour event.
“Honestly, I felt the script today was already written,” he said at the post-round presser. “I was going to give it everything I had. Whether that’s I shoot 75 or 65 or 70, I just was going to give it everything I had.” He admitted that he didn’t know about how close it was while he was playing the last. “I wasn’t (thinking I had a one-shot lead)… “I thought I had a two-shot lead.” Did that release the pressure a bit? No question about it. But it could have gone either way for Dunlap, who, in the wake of his victory took time out away from all the attention to contemplate his future. The win brings with it full-time PGA Tour membership through the 2026 season and invites into lucrative events (next month’s AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am has a purse of close to $20 million). Dunlap withdrew from last week’s Farmers Insurance Open to evaluate his options and came to the decision that the time was here for him to join the big boys on the pro circuit. As an amateur, he’s already forfeited the winner’s cheque of $1.5 million at The American Express; no one will fault him for not wanting to lose any more of his potential earnings this year.
It’s never a good idea to try and predict a career based on one result. But it seems safe to assume that this was no flash in the pan. Dunlap had already matched Tiger Woods’ feat of winning the US Junior Amateur and the US Amateur. And now he stands alone as the only amateur to have won those and a PGA Tour event.
Jim Dunlap can keep a straight face. After his son’s historic triumph, Dunlap Sr was asked by an interviewer to identify the moment he realised that his son–Nick Dunlap–might be ‘…something special.’ He didn’t have to think hard. “He was always good at sports. I realised he had the potential to do something when he shot a 59 at age 12…” he replied smugly. That pretty much triggered something in me…”
Think about that for a minute: a course-record-setting 11-under 59 at the Highland Park Golf Course in Birmingham at the age of 12, to win an event by 13 strokes. The last time a player was in the news for winning by 13 strokes was at the 2014 Senior Open, and the player could have only been the inimitable Bernhard Langer. The 65-year-old became the oldest player to win a major on the Champions Tour when he won the 2023 US Senior Open. The German has five victories after turning 64–something unequalled in the history of the Tour. Even though he shows no signs of hanging up his boots, Langer recently announced that the 2024 Masters Tournament will be his last appearance at Augusta. He’s missed the cut last three times and Langer clearly isn’t interested in playing unless he has a chance to win. Could he possibly pull off a miracle The Masters? That sounds about as preposterous as an amateur winning a PGA Tour event.
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