First Tiger, now Phil: Dunlap keeps making history

Nick Dunlap is no stranger to big putts – and sinking them.

He’s just never had one quite of this magnitude.

So, as he prepared to hit a 6-footer that, if made, would mark the 20-year-old Alabama sophomore as the first amateur to win on the PGA Tour in over three decades, Dunlap reminded himself that he’d hit that putt before. Many times, in fact.

“Different situation, but it’s the same golf shot,” said Dunlap, who used that adage throughout Sunday’s final round of The American Express after starting the day three shots clear of the field, chasing history while some of world’s biggest stars chased him.

“That’s all that kept going through my head: I’ve done this before; I can do it again.”

Last summer at Cherry Hills, Dunlap matched Tiger Woods as the only players to win both the U.S. Junior (Dunlap captured that title in 2021) and U.S. Amateur. When that 6-footer dropped Sunday, Dunlap joined another elite list as the eighth different amateur to win on the PGA Tour since 1940 – and the first to do so since Phil Mickelson at the 1991 Northern Telecom Open.

And of all the amateurs that have lifted a Tour trophy, only Charles Kocsis, who was 18 when he won the 1931 Michigan Open, was younger.

“As a kid, you kind of whack it around all over the putting green, and every putt’s for a chance to win, whether that’s a PGA Tour event, the Masters, the U.S. Open,” Dunlap said. “And to have that putt, I took a little bit longer than I normally might, and just take in the moment and nothing’s for granted. I may not ever have that chance again, and I just want to embrace it.

“You know, it may not ever happen again.”

If history has told us anything, though, it probably will.

There’s a reason why Dunlap’s mentor, former pro golfer Jeff Curl, has been telling people since Dunlap was barely in high school that Dunlap would be the No. 1 player in pro golf by age 25. Blessed with speed and touch and just about everything in between, Dunlap arrived in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, in the fall of 2022 already looking and acting like a future Tour pro. He’s long been an old soul, gravitating as a kid toward the slew of pro golfers and older members whom he’d compete in money games against at Greystone Golf and Country Club in Birmingham, Alabama. If it wasn’t for nagging left-wrist tendonitis, which limited Dunlap’s ability to grind for hours on the range, Dunlap might’ve experienced this ascension sooner – not that he’s not currently on a breakneck pace.

Alabama head coach Jay Seawell can pinpoint the moment when Dunlap took off. It was last February at the Tide’s spring opener, the Hayt Invitational, and Dunlap got blitzed by his Birmingham rival, Gordon Sargent, to the tune of 19 shots. Dunlap knew then that he needed to get a lot better, but he also felt healthy enough to get back in the dirt.

“He went to work literally the day after we got home,” Seawell said, “and as soon as he got done practicing, his hand didn’t hurt, and he told us, ‘It won’t be long.’”

While Ludvig Åberg was wowing the pro-golf world, Dunlap was dominating the amateur game. He won the Northeast Amateur and North and South Amateur in back-to-back starts, and then mowed down a stout field, including Sargent, at Cherry Hills to claim the Havemeyer Trophy. He capped his summer by helping the U.S. to a gritty Walker Cup comeback, and then won the SEC Fall Preview and lipped out a putt for college golf’s first 59 at his college next event.

“He was nervous, energy was high,” Seawell said of Dunlap’s 59 quest last fall. “But he never got scared.”

All week in Palm Springs, Dunlap, now the world’s third-ranked amateur, repeated the old Billie Jean King saying, “Pressure is a privilege.” He walked the talk, too, channeling his nerves into an opening 64, then a second-round 65, then a 12-under 60 at La Quinta Country Club on Saturday to grab a three-shot lead and final-round grouping alongside Ryder Cuppers Sam Burns and Justin Thomas. (It was Dunlap’s second 60 in less than a week, too, as the day before flying out he shot 11 under at Northriver Club in Tuscaloosa, carding a back-nine 28 and chipping in on the last for birdie – and that was coming off a six-week break that Dunlap mostly spent hunting.)

Seawell coached Thomas for two years at Alabama during which Thomas won the Haskins Award as a freshman while leading the Tide to a national runner-up finish and then an NCAA title the following year as a sophomore. Dunlap, Seawell says, reminds him so much of Thomas, now a two-time major champ.

“I never worried about Justin in the last round, and I don’t worry about Nick in the last round,” Seawell said.

If there was a moment, however, that could test Seawell’s belief in his player, it came Sunday at the 355-yard, par-4 seventh hole of Pete Dye’s Stadium Course at PGA West. Playing steady at 1 under for the round and without a bogey despite admittedly being the most nervous he’s ever been, Dunlap took iron off the tee and upon contact immediately let go of the club. His ball flared right and eventually splashed in the lake. It led to a double bogey and, thanks to Burns’ birdie, a three-shot swing and new co-lead.

“I told [caddie] Hunter [Hamrick] that we hadn’t faced much adversity yet,” Dunlap said, “and hitting my ball in the water on 7, it tested everything I had.”

Luckily, Dunlap had done this before. Before winning the U.S. Amateur, Dunlap began his first round of stroke play 5 over through seven holes, hitting a wrong ball and four-putting once. On his walk to the eighth tee, Curl, who was caddying, wrote some words of encouragement down in Dunlap’s yardage book: This can be an AMAZING story if you let go and LET IT HAPPEN!!!

The rest, as they say, is history.

Only Dunlap wasn’t done writing – and this latest story was arguably better.

“I probably had a thousand different scenarios in my head of how today was going to go,” Dunlap said, “and it went nothing like I expected.”

Dunlap’s dad, Jim, was interviewed by Golf Channel after his son’s double. Nick had lost his lead, trailing Burns by a shot through 12 holes, when Jim Dunlap said, “Nick is a grinder. I wouldn’t be surprised at all if you don’t see him put a couple birdies together toward the end here and at least make a run for it.”

Words since proven prophetic. Dunlap, quick early but having slowed down his process on the back side, birdied Nos. 14 and 16 to pull back even with Burns, and he then safely found the island green at the par-3 17^th hole before watching Burns’ tee ball leak right and find the water.

On the next tee, Dunlap figured he had a two-shot lead, not knowing that up ahead Christiaan Bezuidenhout would birdie to get to 28 under. Dunlap needed par, not bogey. After hitting a couple nervous fades, Dunlap got a good bounce off the second one and faced a straightforward chip with plenty of green to work with. He ran it 6 feet past, and with his mind suddenly racing about the read, he turned to his caddie for help.

Hamrick was teammates with Thomas on that 2012 NCAA runner-up squad that lost to Jordan Spieth and Texas at Riviera. That next week, Hamrick turned pro and was in the ninth-to-last pairing on Sunday at the U.S. Open before shooting 77 and tying for 46^th. Hamrick’s pro-golf career never panned out, but he did serve as Alabama’s assistant coach last season before moving into insurance. As Seawell put it Saturday night before flying to Palm Springs, Hamrick possesses a high golf IQ and is very good in moments of indecision.

And so, before the biggest putt of Dunlap’s life, Hamrick, calmly and confidently, said, “It’s inside left.”

Dunlap, who for years has consistently used the same putter and done the same putting drill, took it from there.

“He’s one of the best putters I’ve ever been around,” Hamrick said. “Inside 10-15 feet is just unbelievable. He just hardly ever misses the putts that you’re supposed to make.”

Great read. Great stroke. Extraordinary result.

Asked if he saw this coming, Seawell didn’t hesitate: “Absolutely.”

“I knew he was good enough,” Seawell said. “I knew he could handle it. And it looked bleak with four or five holes to play, but that was Dunlap time. He does that at home, he’s done it his whole life, and he did it out here on the PGA Tour today.”

Added Dunlap: “Honestly, I felt like the script today was already written. I was going to go give it everything I had. Whether that’s I shoot 75 or 65 or 70, I was just going to go give it everything I had.”

As for what Dunlap’s next chapter will be, that – although one can certainly speculate – is undecided. With his victory, Dunlap is exempt on the PGA Tour through the 2026 season. He can accept membership at any point during this season (and up to 30 days after the final event), turn professional and compete in all the signature events, The Players, Masters, PGA Championship and U.S. Open, which he earned for his U.S. Amateur win and can play as an amateur or a pro. Or Dunlap, who has five more semesters of eligibility remaining, can return to school and chase rings; he’d still be in the Masters and U.S. Open, could play The Open as an amateur (thanks to his U.S. Am win) and would be allowed up to 12 Tour starts as a tournament winner (he was already lined up to play next week’s Farmers Insurance Open on a sponsor invite).

Dunlap was potentially on his way to a Tour card by this summer, anyway, via the PGA Tour University’s Accelerated program, which has already awarded Sargent his Tour membership. Dunlap had 11 of the 20 points he needs prior to this week.

Inevitably, Dunlap was asked the question on Sunday evening: What’s next?

“Oh, boy,” Dunlap said, grinning ear to ear and turning red. “I have no idea. … That’s something that it doesn’t just affect me; it affects a lot of people – coach back there and my teammates – and it’s a conversation I need to have with a lot of people before I make that decision.”

The night before, Seawell, who has always considered his main job as a college golf coach to be a developer of men, said as much: “In the end, he needs to do what’s best for him and his career and make those decisions, and we’ll fully support him.”

Regardless of what Dunlap decides, Seawell predicts the big putts will keep dropping.

On a stage set Sunday in the Coachella Valley, where for decades celebrities of all walks used to rub elbows at the ol’ Bob Hope Desert Classic, a new star was born.

“He’s here for a long time,” Seawell said. “People who love this game and want to watch it played the right way by a great young man, get used to because that’s who he is.”