Nick Dunlap walked off the El Cardonal course in 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 — a year after winning as an amateur and then again as a pro — his bogey-free 61 in Mexico felt like a weight had been lifted from his shoulders. Dunlap entered the week having missed 12 of 24 cuts this season while finishing in the top 10 just once. Problems with the driver – he hits only 48% of fairways while losing almost 1.5 strokes off the tee per round – saw the 21-year-old venture into the golf wilderness, or rather disappear. For at least one lap on the wide-open Diamante, Dunlap felt like the sport he loves wasn’t trying to crush him.
“It was good. It was fun to play with that stuff,” Dunlap said with a smile about hitting all 14 fairways. “I haven’t done that in a while. It was nice not to have to look for my ball in the desert. I can just go into the fairway.”
Dunlap wouldn’t be the first talented pro to betray part of his game. Tiger Woods suffered from terrible chipping problems ten years ago. Tom Watson’s putter turned against him and never fully recovered. Dunlap is just the latest professional to learn the brutal reality of pro golf. You can feel like you have everything in the palm of your hand and it can disappear in an instant.
A year ago, Dunlap won the American Express as a twenty-year-old amateur. His family, girlfriend, agent and swing coach were all on hand in Palm Springs, California, to celebrate the momentous win. He turned pro and won the Barracuda Championship in the summer. The arrow pointed straight up at 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” isn’t uttered, but an opening round of 90 at the Masters showed the depth of Dunlap’s golf pain. After that disastrous grand opening round, Dunlap spent the entire night shooting balls into the woods from the back porch of his Airbnb. There was no technical work being done, just a golfer wanting to escape what he had poured his soul into – something that was currently causing him nothing but pain.
To his credit, Dunlap returned for the second round at Augusta National, fired a 71 and opened himself up to the despondency that professional golf created.
“There are 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 love this game. It doesn’t really love me right now.”
Nick Dunlap interview after round 1 of the World Wide Technology Championship
His assessment of his career at the time came with a dose of perspective.
“It’s extremely rewarding and at the same time extremely humbling and frustrating. I think professional golf can be a very lonely place, especially if you play poorly,” Dunlap said.
Dunlap left Augusta National having borne his soul and continued his journey through the golf wilderness. He missed the cut in seven of his next twelve tournaments. He played three no-cut Signature events over the weekend (RBC Heritage, Truist Championship, Travelers Championship), cracking the top-50 at the Memorial and getting a T11 at the John Deere. He shot just nine rounds in the 1960s from mid-April to the end of August. Four joined the John Deere. Dunlap continued to grind, 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 and not linear.
He returned to Sanderson Farms and finished T44. But he took 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 lost more than three strokes off the tee on Friday and shot 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 dishing out pain and delivering ecstasy. It doesn’t choose who it hits. It is up to the player to respond.
“It’s championship golf; it can be volatile,” McIlroy said. “The conditions can be tough. The momentum can go the wrong way. But we’re all great players. We’re playing in the Masters. We’re all capable of getting good scores.”
Even for those blessed with a natural gift and a relentless work ethic, golf can sometimes seem impossible, like trying to smash a concrete wall with a giant inflatable hammer. It has paralyzed countless professionals. Dunlap is battered just a year after his meteoric ascension.
“It’s a tough game. If anything can go wrong, it has lately,” Dunlap said Thursday in Mexico after turning 61. “Try not to make it personal in a way and just try to come out here and have as much fun as you can. I just think golf can make – whatever way to put it. Golf can make you be very, very hard on yourself, especially if you put a lot of work into it, then you don’t get good results.”
Dunlap has dragged himself through the wilderness with his head down, believing that golf would eventually reward him for his perseverance. At Augusta, Dunlap showed his mettle when he showed up again for the second round, when many of his contemporaries would have had an ailment to avoid embarrassment. When he said he wouldn’t quit, he didn’t just mean at the Masters. He meant on himself. On a journey without a final destination. He signed for that.
But while he’s been content to push through the trees, hoping to see a glimmer of light as he searches through the darkness of golf, Nick Dunlap hasn’t let the trials and tribulations rob him of the patience and perspective needed to reach the other side.
“A lot,” Dunlap said Thursday about how much he has learned. “It wasn’t an easy task. But at the same time, I could do a lot worse things. I play on the PGA Tour. I have a lot of time. I’m still young. I’m just trying to learn as much as I can.”
Some lessons are just harder than others.
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