CHERRY HILLS VILLAGE, Colo. – Nick Dunlap’s U.S. Amateur had gotten off to a rocky start. Before the championship even began, the Alabama sophomore battled nosebleeds and headaches from the dry, mountain air. He then played the wrong ball, four-putted and backed up to 5 over through seven holes of Monday’s opening round at Colorado Golf Club.
That’s when Dunlap’s caddie, former touring pro Jeff Curl, took out his pencil and scribbled a few words in his yardage book before showing the message to Dunlap:
This can be an AMAZING story if you let go and LET IT HAPPEN!!!
On Sunday afternoon at Cherry Hills Country Club, the 19-year-old Dunlap authored the final chapter to that story – and it was more amazing than Curl could’ve drawn up. Dunlap’s 4-and-3 victory over Ohio State senior Neal Shipley in the scheduled 36-hole championship match proved what many had been saying all week – that Dunlap, after a scorching summer, was the best amateur on the planet.
Even if it took eight holes for him to show it.
“When you’re 5 over through seven, and your mind is spinning and you can’t see straight, obviously it’s red … you’re looking at the negative, like man, I think I was in last at one point,” Dunlap said. “For me to be able to snap out of that … I just learned that anything is possible as long as you put your mind to it.”
Nick Dunlap began this 123rd U.S. Am by playing a wrong ball on his 3rd hole, four-putting his 5th hole and being 5 over thru 7.
— Brentley Romine (@BrentleyGC) August 20, 2023
That's when his caddie Jeff Curl wrote this on 8th hole of Dunlap's yardage book: "This can be an AMAZING story if you let go and LET IT HAPPEN!!!" pic.twitter.com/KUHI6IlnaP
Dunlap’s triumph placed him in esteemed company. He now is just the second player ever to win both the U.S. Junior Amateur, which he captured two years ago, and the U.S. Amateur.
The first? Tiger Woods, who notched three-peats in both championships.
“It’s only a third of what he did,” Dunlap noted, “but just to be in the same conversation as Tiger is a dream come true and something that I’ve worked my entire life for.”
If Woods is Dunlap’s preeminent idol in this game, not far behind is Curl, the 44-year-old veteran who logged more than 100 starts on what is now called the Korn Ferry Tour before two shoulder injuries derailed his career. Curl was in his prime when he first noticed a 7-year-old Dunlap bouncing around at Greystone Golf and Country Club in Birmingham, Alabama. Curl still remembers one summer afternoon, a few years later, when he was grinding on his game in a downpour, and right next to him was Dunlap, not yet in middle school, going iron for iron with him. Curl snapped a photo to preserve the first of many such moments.
When Dunlap reached high school, Curl threw him into the pro games at Greystone, and it wasn’t long before PGA Tour pros got a taste of what Curl had been warning everyone about.
“I tell people that by the time he’s 25, he’ll be the No. 1 player in the world,” Curl said. “And I’m not changing my opinion now.”
First, Dunlap is on a collision course to being the world’s top-ranked amateur. He rolled into the summer after a strong finish to his freshman season at Alabama and proceeded to capture back-to-back Elite Amateur Series events, the Northeast Amateur and North and South Amateur. He also reached the quarterfinals of the grueling Western Amateur and entered the U.S. Amateur ranked a career-best ninth in the World Amateur Golf Ranking.
After rallying to make match play at Cherry Hills by a couple shots, Dunlap drew a first-round matchup with world No. 1 Gordon Sargent, a fellow Birmingham-area native whom Dunlap has been sized up against for years. Over the past six months, Sargent has risen to the top of the world while becoming the first NCAA individual champion ever to be invited to play in the Masters and will soon be the first college player to clinch his PGA Tour card via PGA Tour University’s Accelerated program – Sargent can claim his Tour membership starting next summer.
So, what did Dunlap do? He went out and delivered his best performance of the week, birdieing four of his last seven to eliminate Sargent, 2 and 1, and show why some equipment reps and agents consider Dunlap to be the most promising pro prospect in the amateur game.
“He was more amped for that match than I’ve seen him in a long time,” Curl said.
He never came down from that Rocky Mountain high either. With every win this week, Dunlap boosted his confidence, and he arrived for his title bout with Shipley, who had four top-3s of his own this summer, armed with all the momentum in the world. In 33 holes, Dunlap carded 12 birdies, six of those coming in the first 11 holes of the afternoon portion. Yet, Shipley, who didn’t record a bogey during the morning 18 a day after delivering a crowd-pumping semifinal win over Auburn’s J.M. Butler, wouldn’t be easily shook.
For Dunlap, the turning point came at the par-4 ninth, the match’s 27th hole, when he drained a 30-footer for birdie to eventually tie the hole with Shipley, who had knocked his approach to 5 feet and would convert his putt.
“He was going to make that putt, and I think that turned things a little bit,” said Dunlap, who remained 3 up.
Sure, Dunlap followed with a few loose drives on the back nine – he yanked a tee shot at the par-4 10th hole up against the stone wall of one of the club’s maintenance buildings and was relieved to know that he wasn’t out of bounds – but he never lost his composure.
After taking his free drop on No. 10, Dunlap rolled in another birdie, this time from 18 feet.
“Nerves, couldn’t feel my hands, couldn’t feel my legs, my feet couldn’t feel anything,” Dunlap described. “Everything starts going really fast, but I’m stoked with how I played. I executed exactly what I was trying to do.”
Shipley was 6 under on the day before doubling the match’s penultimate hole, the par-4 14th, but that was only good enough to win four holes.
“I got outdueled today,” said Shipley, whose spirited run officially ended on the 15th green as Dunlap moved to 30-2 in match play since July 2021.
(U.S. Walker Cup captain Mike McCoy is surely thrilled, as he, Dunlap and nine other American players head to St. Andrews in less than two weeks.)
Added Dunlap’s Alabama teammate Canon Claycomb, who opted to forfeit his PGA Tour U status last season and return for a fifth year, largely to chase an NCAA team title with Dunlap: “There was not a doubt in my mind that Nick Dunlap wasn’t going to win today. ... If he could’ve played six more rounds here, he would’ve won them all.”
Alabama head coach Jay Seawell agrees. He’s seen a level of fortitude in Dunlap displayed by few others. When Dunlap developed tendonitis in his left wrist last year and couldn’t practice properly for months, Seawell reached out to Dunlap and promised him, “We’ll get you healthy.” Dunlap still tapes the wrist because it makes him feel more secure, but under the guidance of the university’s medical staff, most notable trainer Clarke Holter, Dunlap has been pain-free since late winter.
Seawell remembers Dunlap coming off a disappointing spring opener at The Hayt, where he lost to Sargent by 19 shots, and saying, “I’m not very good right now. These guys are way better than me. But I’m healthy enough that I can practice.”
“He went to work literally the day after we got home,” Seawell added, “and as soon as he got done practicing, his hand didn’t hurt, and he told us, ‘It won’t be long.’”
Curl had an inkling, too. The feeling Curl possessed last weekend mimicked what he felt entering the 2021 U.S. Junior, where he believed not only was Dunlap the best player in the field, but he couldn’t be stopped. That week Curl challenged Dunlap to trust him as he conservatively navigated the kid around Country Club of North Carolina. While Dunlap might’ve been slightly miffed about laying up on par-5s and not garnering stroke-play medalist honors, he couldn’t argue with the final result.
“I knew nobody had played any better than him,” Curl said, “and if he could just get to match play, he’s really hard to beat.”
Two years later, Dunlap proved it once more.
He had an answer for everything that this 123rd U.S. Amateur threw at him, and nobody had an answer for him.
