CHERRY HILLS VILLAGE, COLORADO | It was late Wednesday morning at Cherry Hills Country Club, the temperature quickly climbing into the upper 90s, when the U.S. Amateur’s hottest match was ready to commence.
A couple hundred gallery members gathered around the first tee, an incredibly rare occurrence for a round-of-64 match. Everyone wanted to see two Alabamians and soon-to-be U.S. Walker Cup teammates who carry hopes of professional stardom: Gordon Sargent, the world’s top-ranked amateur and a former NCAA champion, and Nick Dunlap, the No. 1 junior golfer in the class of 2022 and perhaps the fastest-rising amateur in all of golf. It would have been a dream championship match, but it was happening right out of the match-play gates.
A few moments later, Dunlap’s caddie – mentor and former Korn Ferry Tour player Jeff Curl – told his player to take a look around.
“When we were walking down No. 1, he’s like, ‘Man, just take a look back and just embrace this,’” Dunlap said. “I didn’t even see it. I couldn’t feel my hands.
“It was kind of on 17 when I was finally able to look up, like ‘Man, this is pretty cool,’ especially at a place like this and in the match we were in. It was pretty neat.”
Dunlap lost the first hole against Sargent but made four back-nine birdies to close him out on the 17th green, the growing horde of spectators surrounding what was the first island green on a par-5 in American golf.
Dunlap knocked off hometown favorite Connor Jones, 4 and 2, in the round of 32 on Wednesday before besting Bowen Mauss, 5 and 3, to reach Friday’s quarterfinals. Combined with the impressive victory over Sargent one day earlier, Dunlap’s play has said something followers of amateur golf have been slowly recognizing over the past 12 months: his ceiling is as high as it gets.
That assessment, echoed by many, is part qualitative and part quantitative. Dunlap was a conquering junior, the 2021 U.S. Junior Amateur champion (the only Alabama native to win it) who nearly repeated the feat a year later. A longtime verbal commit to the Alabama Crimson Tide, Dunlap reopened his recruitment but then chose Alabama once again – the homeschooled Huntsville resident had been attending the program’s camps from age 11. After being the top-ranked junior in his high school class, Dunlap had nine top-15 finishes as a freshman last season, including a victory in the Linger Longer Invitational.
It took time for Dunlap to get in the groove of college competition because he was recovering from tendinitis in his wrist, an issue that popped up around the 2022 U.S. Open. He hit his stride in mid-spring, tying for fourth in the NCAA Norman Regional and tying for 11th in the NCAA Championship.
By the time he finished his first college season and felt completely healthy, Dunlap really caught fire. He qualified for the U.S. Open in June and then won the Northeast and North & South amateur championships to solidify his position on the Walker Cup squad. Before he reached the quarterfinals of the Western Amateur, Dunlap was named to the American team that will travel to St. Andrews to take on Great Britain and Ireland in two weeks.
He was the No. 63 player in the World Amateur Golf Ranking at the start of 2023. Less than eight months later, he has climbed to No. 9.
The results are one aspect, but Dunlap more than looks the part. He has sponsorships from Adidas, TaylorMade, True Temper and Wealthspire Advisors, among others. And at 6-foot-3 with a powerful swing that produces a distinct fade, Dunlap is fond of wearing camouflage on the course but otherwise can’t be missed.
© 2023 Global Golf Post LLC
RESULTS / TEE TIMES