Nick Dunlap arrived at just the right time.
Between the ice-scraper mornings and the increasing weariness with the fractured state of professional golf, Dunlap’s victory Sunday in the American Express had a good-for-the-soul feeling.
It was about youth and possibilities and golf again.
It will be about the money soon enough and, in fact, it already is, with questions swirling about when the 20-year-old Dunlap, a college sophomore at Alabama, will forsake his amateur status to join the PGA Tour full-time now that he’s fully exempt through 2026.
But the money talk grew tiresome long ago. Whether it’s $20 million signature events or nine-figure signing bonuses, the money part has become a turnoff.
It has corrupted college athletics, and it has made professional golf and many of the people who play it greedy.
Dunlap deserves the millions that will come his way, having earned his financial security by winning the U.S. Junior (2021), the U.S. Amateur (2023) and a PGA Tour event as an amateur. He’s already in rare air, and he’s not yet 21.
What Dunlap accomplished in the southern California desert was about what he did and how he did it more than the $1.5 million prize he could not accept.
All eyes, microphones and cameras were on Nick Dunlap after he became the first amateur in 33 years to win on the PGA Tour. (Photos: Ken Murray, Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
He slept on a three-stroke lead Saturday night, and when that advantage vanished with a blood-draining double bogey on the seventh hole Sunday, Dunlap didn’t panic.
Just when it was easy to think the moment had become too big, Dunlap grew into it. He said he was nervous and that nothing was going according to plan, but Dunlap looked and played as if he’d been there a thousand times.
When it came time to win or lose, it was Sam Burns – a five-time tour winner – who made the costly mistake and it was Dunlap who won with a nervy up-and-down par save on the 72nd hole.
“Just tried to breathe, but also look up and enjoy it a little bit,” Dunlap said Sunday evening.
How many 20-year-olds are wise enough to look outside of themselves, especially in a moment like that one?
Phil Mickelson, Scott Verplank, Doug Sanders, Gene Littler, Frank Stranahan, Cary Middlecoff and Fred Haas. The rarity of his achievement and the pedigree of his predecessors suggests that Dunlap can be something special.
Dunlap is the latest example of how the best college players are now better prepared for the PGA Tour. Collin Morikawa, Viktor Hovland and Ludvig Åberg showed up in recent years ready to win, and now here’s Dunlap and, soon, Gordon Sargent who are likely to make themselves at home immediately.
On Saturday night, Dunlap said he was planning to do laundry. Asked on Sunday evening whether he had any schoolwork to get done, he said yes but he planned to put it off. The professor should understand, and if not, recently retired Alabama football coach Nick Saban could explain it because he was watching and providing some impromptu television analysis on Sunday.
Consider the list of amateurs to have won on the PGA Tour since 1940:
Phil Mickelson, Scott Verplank, Doug Sanders, Gene Littler, Frank Stranahan, Cary Middlecoff and Fred Haas. The rarity of his achievement and the pedigree of his predecessors suggests that Dunlap can be something special.
Maybe he will be, but there’s no sense rushing it.
Rather than project how many majors Dunlap might win, this is the moment to appreciate what he just did. There’s a reason no one had done it in 33 years and it took someone as remarkable as Mickelson to do it then.
We’re all guilty of hurrying along to the next thing, but Dunlap doesn’t have to do that. For the moment, he is left to decide what’s next.
Scheduled to play in the Farmers Insurance Open this week at Torrey Pines, Dunlap instead posted a message on social media Monday reading that after “a life-changing last 24 hours” he had decided to withdraw from the event to return to Alabama to be with family, friends and teammates.
Without knowing anything more than what the statement offered, it seems like a good idea.
Much of Dunlap’s young life has been pointed toward where he found himself late Sunday afternoon, with tears in his eyes and a tempest of thoughts and feelings running through him.
If winning a PGA Tour event was hard, is making a decision about what’s next any easier?
From a practical sense, Dunlap has every reason to turn pro now. He’s fully exempt on tour through 2026, he will be set for the major championships and he’s in all of the signature events if he wants to be. Outside the top 4,000 in the Official World Golf Ranking a week ago, Dunlap is now No. 68.
“Nothing’s for granted. I may not ever have that chance again, and I just want to embrace it.” – Nick Dunlap
He’s a marketing dream: young, with otherworldly talent and an endearing personality. The PGA Tour, which has lost its share of stars recently, just found a new one, provided LIV Golf doesn’t poach him.
It’s all there for Dunlap, but maybe he wants to finish this season at Alabama, to share those van rides with teammates, enjoy Tuscaloosa a little longer and chase an NCAA championship. That’s something the tour money can’t buy.
Realists will say that he should take the money now. Romantics will say that he should stay in college and enjoy these days before golf becomes a job. Golf could use a little romance about now.
Facing a 6-foot putt to win on the final green Sunday at PGA West’s Stadium Course in La Quinta, California, Dunlap took an extra beat to make sure he was ready. His caddie, Alabama golf alumnus Hunter Hamrick, softened the moment by telling Dunlap, “Your mom could make this putt.”
Dunlap, after a smile, knew what all of it meant.
“Nothing’s for granted,” Dunlap said. “I may not ever have that chance again, and I just want to embrace it. You know, it may not ever happen again.”
Maybe not.
But it felt like what the game needs right now.
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