Things got awfully close for PGA Tour rookie Nick Dunlap. He entered the final round of the FedEx St. Jude Championship in solo second and needed a top-five finish to punch a ticket to next week’s BMW Championship.
Oh, and the top 50 players in the FedEx Cup standings who make it to the BMW automatically qualify for next year’s eight Signature Events—a career-changing opportunity for any young player, let alone for Dunlap.
He knew the stakes, which made the last few holes so stressful. After making a birdie at the par-5 16th, Dunlap sat at 14-under for the championship and one behind Hideki Matsuyama, Viktor Hovland, and Xander Schauffele. He still had a chance to win the golf tournament, but he still knew he had to post a top-five finish.
Two challenging holes awaited him, and two bogies would relegate him out of the top 50.
“I was a train wreck. I’m not going to lie to you. I was arguably the most nervous I’ve ever been, to be honest,” Dunlap said.
“I just didn’t want the season to end. I’ve been having so much fun, and I hit some really good shots, a good tee shot on 12, two really good ones on 16 and 17, and then got up there and smoked it on 18. However, that would have shaken out, and I would have been super proud of myself.”
After finding the fairway on 17, Dunlap, facing a one-stroke deficit, went pin-hunting, and rightfully so. But he blocked his approach and missed in the right bunker. He short-sided himself and made a bogey, which set the stage for a dramatic 18th hole: a par changes his career, and a bogey drops him out of the top 50.
“It was weird. I went from on 17 to trying to attack the pin—I thought I still had a chance to win the golf tournament— to not getting up and down,” Dunlap said.
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“Then I’m questioning if I’m inside the bubble or not. It was very stressful.”
Dunlap then laced a 280-yard missile right down the middle of the 18th fairway, one of the most difficult fairways to find at TPC Southwind. He then had 180 to the flag and hit his approach safely onto the back of the green. A two-putt from there sealed the deal.
“Just relief, honestly,” Dunlap said when asked about how he felt after making par on 18.
“A lot of hard work. I knew what I needed to do for this week, just to keep the season going. Like I said, I’ve been having so much fun, and it’s another week to go try to learn and go try to play well.”
Dunlap has had one special year, becoming the first player ever to win a PGA Tour event as both an amateur and a professional in the same calendar year. His victory at The American Express in January marked the first instance since 1991 in which an amateur won on tour. Phil Mickelson was the last to do so. Then, after not qualifying for The Open, Dunlap played in and won the Barracuda Championship in California in July.
In between those two wins, however, the grind and difficulty of the PGA Tour humbled Dunlap. He missed eight cuts and recorded only four top 10s, but he still secured enough FedEx Cup points to qualify for the BMW Championship and beyond.
“Even throughout the year, I was struggling, but I still felt like I was getting better; I just wasn’t getting the results that I felt like I was playing,” Dunlap said.
“Yeah, these past couple of weeks, it’s been nice to see that come to light. Especially driving, my 3-wood, and my chipping, I’ve gotten that a lot better. Coming down the stretch, for that to show was really cool.”
But what was really cool was seeing a young up-and-comer handle the nerves with grace, not crumble in the spotlight, and triumph when everything was on the line. Cool stuff, indeed.
Jack Milko is a golf staff writer for SB Nation’s Playing Through. Be sure to check out @_PlayingThrough for more golf coverage. You can follow him on Twitter @jack_milko as well.
