Nick Dunlap walked off the course at El Cardonal at Diamante on Thursday after the first round of the World Wide Technology Championship grinning from ear to ear.
Hitting all 14 fairways while making nine birdies and an eagle will have that effect. But given where Dunlap has been this season — one year after he won as an amateur and then again as a pro — his bogey-free 61 in Mexico felt like a weight was lifted off his shoulders. Dunlap entered the week having missed 12 of 24 cuts this season while only carding one top-10 finish. Driver issues — he is hitting just 48% of fairways while losing almost 1.5 strokes off the tee per round — caused the 21-year-old to venture, or disappear rather, into the golfing wilderness. For at least one round at the wide-open Diamante, Dunlap felt like the sport he loves wasn’t trying to crush him.
“It was good. It was nice playing out of that stuff,” Dunlap said with a smile about hitting all 14 fairways. “I haven’t done that in a little while. It was nice not having to find my ball in the desert. I can just go out to the fairway.”
Dunlap wouldn’t be the first talented pro to have part of his game betray him. Tiger Woods battled horrible chipping issues a decade ago. Tom Watson’s putter turned on 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 a blink.
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, Calif., to celebrate the momentous victory. He turned pro and won the Barracuda Championship in the summer. The arrow was pointing straight up for Dunlap. Then, earlier this year, after a T10 at the Sony and a T17 at the Genesis Invitational, Dunlap lost his swing with the driver. The word “yips” hasn’t been uttered, but an opening-round 90 at the Masters showed the depth of Dunlap’s golfing pain. After that disastrous opening major round, Dunlap spent the night firing balls into 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 currently was only bringing him pain.
To his credit, Dunlap returned for the second round at Augusta National, fired a 71, and opened up on the despondency professional golf was causing.
“There’s a lot of things I could have done that would make me a lot more happy,” Dunlap said. “But yeah, I’m never going to quit. I’m always going to show up.
“I love this game. It doesn’t really love me back right now.”
Nick Dunlap interview after Round 1 of World Wide Technology 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’re playing poorly,” Dunlap said.
Dunlap left Augusta National after bearing his soul and continued his journey through the golfing wilderness. He missed the cut in seven of his next 12 tournaments. He played the weekend at three no-cut Signature Events (RBC Heritage, Truist Championship, Travelers Championship), made the top-50 cut at the Memorial and carded a T11 at the John Deere. He shot just nine rounds in the 60s from mid-April through the end of August. Four came at the John Deere. Dunlap kept grinding, working with Scott Hamilton to find a cure for what ails him off the tee.
As is always the case in golf, progress is incremental, not linear.
He returned at the Sanderson Farms and finished T44. But he picked up strokes off the tee in three of the four rounds and finished the week 31st in Strokes Gained: Off the Tee. Next came the Bank of Utah Championship, where he opened with a five-under 66 but then lost over three strokes off the tee on Friday, shooting 76 to miss the cut.
At the Masters, Rory McIlroy was asked about Dunlap’s 90 and his second-round 71. 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 doling out pain and delivering ecstasy. It doesn’t pick and choose who it batters. It’s up to the player to respond.
“It’s championship golf; it can be volatile,” McIlroy said. “The conditions can be tough. The momentum can start to go the wrong way on you. But we’re all great players. We’re playing in the Masters. We’re all capable of shooting good scores.”
Even for those blessed with a natural gift and a relentless work ethic, golf can seem impossible at times, like trying to smash a concrete wall with a giant blow-up hammer. It has crippled countless pros. Dunlap has been battered just one year after his meteoric ascension.
“It’s a hard game. Kind of seems like if something can go wrong it has recently,” Dunlap said Thursday in Mexico after his 61. “Just try not to make it personal in a way and just kind of come out here and try to have as much fun as I can. I just think golf can make — what way to put it. Golf can make you be very, very hard on yourself, especially when you’re putting a lot of work in, you’re not getting good results.”
Dunlap has trudged on through the wilderness — head down, believing golf would eventually start rewarding him for his perseverance. At Augusta, in showing back up for the second round when many of his contemporaries would have WD’d with an ailment just to avoid embarrassment, Dunlap showed his guts. When he said he wouldn’t quit, he didn’t mean just at the Masters. He meant on himself. On a journey with no final destination. It’s what he signed up for.
But while he has been content to push on through the trees, hoping to see a glimmer of light as he sifts through golf’s darkness, Nick Dunlap hasn’t let the trials and tribulations rob him of the patience and perspective needed to get to the other side.
“A lot,” Dunlap said Thursday about how much he’s learned. “Hasn’t been an easy one. But at the same time, I could be doing a lot worse things. I’m playing on the PGA Tour. I 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.
