Twenty-year-old Nick Dunlap has joined the youth brigade that has guaranteed the PGA Tour will continue to be the only golf tour that really matters. Of late, youngsters like Colin Morikawa (26), Victor Hovland (26) Sahith Theegala (26), Cameron Young (26), Ludvig Aberg (24), Akshay Bhatia (21) and Tom Kim (21) have begun to dominate on the PGA Tour and now it appears as if Dunlap may be better than them all.
Dunlap did something in late January that no one has done in 33 years — win on the PGA Tour while still an amateur. The last one to accomplish that was Phil Mickelson at the 1991 Tucson Open.
The reigning U.S. Amateur champion, Dunlap is the only golfer to have won the U.S. Junior, the U.S. Amateur and a PGA Tour event at age 20 or younger. Tiger Woods, also a Junior and Amateur champ, was 21 when he won his first Tour event.
Dunlap, a sophomore at the University of Alabama, shot round of 64-65-60 to take a thee-shot lead into the final round of the American Express in Palm Springs, and the golf world waited for him to shoot a mid- to high-70s round over the final 18 holes and finish tied for 32nd or so.
It didn’t happen. Joseph Lasagna, writing on The Fried Egg website, said “When a player doesn’t belong in the final group of a golf tournament, they tend to unravel. Once the unravelling begins, the wheels seldomly get back on the track. That’s what happens when a player doesn’t have the game to withstand the pressure of a final group on the precipice of a life-changing accomplishment.”
Dunlap did experience an unravelling. It happened on the seventh hole of the Stadium Course at LaQuinta, where he made a double bogey to lose his lead to a hard-charging Sam Burns. But he played the final 11 holes in three under par and when his chasers unravelled a bit themselves, he needed a seven-foot putt on the 18th hole to win. He made no mistake. A golfer who once shot a 59 at age 12, and owns a 30-2 match play record in major amateur events eschewed a $1.5 million payday, which instead went to runner-up Christian Bezuidenhout. The victory locked up a Tour card until the end of 2026, so Dunlap announced three days later he was turning professional.
Not yet enticed by big-money contract offers from LIV, the young stars on the PGA Tour make the established tour the place to play for those wishing to establish a legacy of brilliance. Michael Wolf, on Twitter, had this to say: “Stories like Nick Dunlap can’t happen in 48-person fields where all of the spots are reserved for 40-year-olds who signed guaranteed long term contracts before the year started.”
The win moved Dunlap from a world ranking of 4,129th to 68th, with the ascent likely to continue. He’s obviously golf’s next big thing.
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