Golf amateur Nick Dunlap mulls future after PGA Tour win
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Nick Dunlap hitting a tee shot on the 18th hole during the final round of The American Express in La Quinta, California.
PHOTO: AFP
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LOS ANGELES – Nick Dunlap has withdrawn from this week’s Farmers Insurance Open to return home and ponder his future, following a “life-changing” tournament win over the weekend.
The announcement came less than 24 hours after the 20-year-old became the first amateur to win a PGA Tour event – The American Express in La Quinta, California – since Phil Mickelson in 1991.
Dunlap also rose 4,061 spots to No. 68 in the Official World Golf Ranking, the biggest jump in its history. The University of Alabama student had said after his win he was uncertain if he would continue his amateur career or immediately jump to the PGA Tour.
“After a life-changing last 24 hours, I’ve decided to withdraw from the Farmers Insurance Open,” he said in an announcement released by the PGA Tour on Jan 22.
“I plan to return home to Alabama to be with family, friends and teammates. Thank you to Farmers Insurance and American Express for giving me these opportunities.”
Dunlap beat South Africa’s Christiaan Bezuidenhout by a shot on Jan 21 to claim The American Express. In the process, he joined Mickelson (1991 Northern Telecom Open) and Scott Verplank (1985 Western Open) as only the third amateur to win on tour since 1957.
As an amateur, he was ineligible to claim the US$1.5 million (S$2 million) winner’s cheque. He is now eligible for PGA Tour membership and to enter all seven of the tour’s remaining signature events in 2024.
However, the University of Alabama sophomore would need to turn pro in order to claim prize money at those events. The prospect of going from a sponsors’ invite to professional golfer in a matter of weeks was not something Dunlap was willing to tackle immediately.
“If you would have said, ‘Hey, in five days you’re going to have a PGA Tour card or an opportunity (to be exempt) for two years’, I would have looked at you sideways,” he said.
“It’s a conversation I need to have with a lot of people before I make that decision.”
Dunlap is returning home to Alabama to soak in his historic victory and have those conversations about his future.
Could that include a massive offer from LIV Golf? Jon Rahm, the 2023 Amex winner who signed with LIV in December, is still looking to fill out his new team. Another headline-stealing signing like Dunlap would be the latest public relations coup by the Saudi-backed league.
“Such an impressive performance by Nick Dunlap. Congratulations on an incredible win. This is just the beginning,” Mickelson, a LIV pioneer, posted on X on Jan 21.
Dunlap is also the second-youngest PGA Tour winner in 90 years, behind Jordan Spieth’s win at the 2013 John Deere Classic as a 19-year-old when he was already a professional.
“Obviously, the PGA Tour’s extremely different. So that whole process was different for me, and whether it had turned out the way I was looking or not, I was just going to try to learn from it,” Dunlap added. REUTERS, AFP
