Nick Dunlap left the course at El Cardonal in Diamante on Thursday after the first round of the World Tech Championship grinning from ear to ear.
Hitting all 14 fairways while making nine birdies and an eagle will have this effect. But given where Dunlap has been this season — a year after he won as an amateur and then again as a pro — his bogey-free 61 in Mexico felt like a weight lifted off his shoulders. Dunlap entered the week missing 12 of 24 cuts this season, with just one top-10 finish. Driver issues — he’s hitting just 48% of fairways while missing nearly 1.5 tee shots per round — sent the 21-year-old into, or rather disappearing, into the golf wilderness. For at least one round at the Diamond Open, Dunlap felt like the sport he loves wasn’t trying to crush him.
“It was good. It was nice to play off those things,” Dunlap said with a smile about hitting all 14 fairways. “I haven’t done that in a while. It was nice not having to find my ball in the desert. I can just hit the road.”
Dunlap wouldn’t be the first talented pro to have a part of his game betray him. Tiger Woods struggled with terrible chipping issues a decade ago. Tom Watson’s footballer turned against him and never fully recovered. Dunlap is just the latest pro to learn the cruel reality of pro golf. You can feel like you have it all in the palm of your hand and it can disappear in the blink of an eye.
A year ago, Dunlap won the American Express as a 20-year-old amateur. His family, girlfriend, agent and swing coach were all there in Palm Springs, California, to celebrate the landmark victory. He turned pro and won the Barracuda Championship in the summer. The arrow was pointing at Dunlap. Then, earlier this year, after a T10 at the Sony and a T17 at the Genesis Invitational, Dunlap lost his driver swing. The word “yups” is not pronounced, but an opening round of 90 at the Masters showed the depth of Dunlap’s golfing pain. After that disastrous opening round, Dunlap spent the night shooting balls in the woods off the back porch of his Airbnb. There was no technical work being done, just a golfer looking to escape the thing he had poured his soul into – something that was currently only bringing him pain.
To his credit, Dunlap returned in the second round at Augusta National, shot a 71-year-old and opened up about the despair pro golf was causing.
“There’s a lot of things I could have done that would have made me a lot happier,” Dunlap said. “But yeah, I’ll never give up. I’ll always show up.
“I like this game. I don’t really like it now.”
Nick Dunlap’s interview after Round 1 of the World Tech Championship
His assessment of his career at the time came with a dose of perspective.
“It’s extremely rewarding and extremely humbling and frustrating at the same time. I think professional golf can be a very lonely place — especially when you play poorly,” Dunlap said.
Dunlap left Augusta National after keeping his spirits up and continued his journey through the golf desert. He missed the cut in seven of his next 12 tournaments. He played the weekend in three signature events without cuts (RBC Heritage, Truist Championship, Travelers Championship), placed in the top-50 at the Memorial and scored a T11 at the John Deere. He shot just nine rounds in the 60s between mid-April and late August. Four came in John Deere. Dunlap continued to grind, working with Scott Hamilton to find a cure for what ails him.
As is always the case in golf, progress is incremental, not linear.
He returned to Sanderson Farms and finished T44. But he got strokes off the tee in three of the four rounds and finished the week 31st in Strokes Gained: Off the Tee. Then came the Bank of Utah Championship, where he opened with a five-under 66, but then lost by three shots off the tee on Friday, shooting a 76 to miss the cut.
At the Masters, Rory McIlroy was asked about Dunlap’s 90 and his 71 in the second round. The soon-to-be Masters champion recalled the 2014 Memorial when he opened with a 63 and backed it up with a 79. Golf is democratic in soothing pain and delivering ecstasy. She doesn’t pick and choose who she hits. It’s up to the player to answer.
“It’s championship golf; it can be fickle,” McIlroy said. “The conditions can be tough. The momentum can start to go the wrong way for you. But we’re all great players. We’re playing in the Masters. We’re all capable of scoring well.”
Even for those blessed with a natural gift and a relentless work ethic, golf can seem impossible at times, like trying to break through a concrete wall with a giant jackhammer. It has crippled countless professionals. Dunlap was struck just a year after his meteoric rise.
“It’s a tough game. It feels like something can go wrong, it has recently,” Dunlap said Thursday in Mexico after his 61st. “Just try not to make it personal in any way and just come out here and try to have as much fun as I can. I just think that golf can — how can I put it. Golf can make you be very, very hard on yourself, especially when you’re not working hard to get results.”
Dunlap has walked through the desert – head down, believing that golf would eventually begin to reward him for his persistence. At Augusta, coming back in the second round when many of his contemporaries would have WD’d with an ailment just to avoid embarrassment, Dunlap showed his mettle. When he said he wouldn’t quit, he wasn’t just talking about the Masters. He wanted to say about himself. On a journey with no final destination. It’s what he signed up for.
But while he’s been content to push through the trees, hoping to see a glimmer of light as he sifts through golf’s darkness, Nick Dunlap hasn’t let his trials and tribulations rob him of the patience and perspective needed to make it to the other side.
“A lot,” Dunlap said Thursday of how much he’s learned. “It hasn’t been easy. But at the same time, I could be doing a lot worse. I’m playing on the PGA Tour. I’ve got a lot of time. I’m still young. Just trying to learn as much as I can.”
Some lessons are just harder than others.
