“THE LEADING AMATEURS NOW ARE TEN YEARS AHEAD OF WHERE MY GENERATION WAS AT THE SAME AGE.”
Like most people I suspect, I was surprised when U.S Amateur champion Nick Dunlap won the American Express Championship on the PGA Tour.
But I wasn’t as surprised as I might have been a few years ago. There is plenty of evidence that the leading amateurs – especially those on the U.S college circuit – are playing tour level golf before they turn professional.
All of which is a bit different from the time when I made the switch from playing for fun to playing for money back in the late 1990s. Back then, it wasn’t quite unknown for a top amateur to win a pro event. Robert Allenby had come close to winning the Australian Open in 1991 and Aaron Baddeley went one better when he lifted the Stonehaven Cup in 1999, and defended his title as a professional a year later. (Along with Michael Campbell I played with Aaron in the opening two rounds in ‘99. I can still remember Michael turning to me on the 10th tee on day one and asking, “who the f**k is this kid?”)
But win a PGA Tour event? That was all but unheard of unless your name was Phil Mickelson, who was the last to achieve the feat before Dunlap.
For myself, in the mid-1990s I was one of the top four or five amateurs in Australia. And when the Victorian Open came to my home club of Victoria in 1995, I was in the last group in the final round at the age of
18. I played alongside two experienced professionals in Stephen Leaney and Peter Fowler. Way out of my comfort zone, I shot
78. A really bad day.
But here’s the point. While my ‘golf level’ was okay, my head space was nowehere near good enough to win an event at that level. Not even close, even if, the week before, I had first read psychologist Dr. Bob Rotella’s book, Golf is Not a Game of
Perfect. There was a big difference between being in contention to win an amateur event and a pro tournament. Suddenly there are cameras and lots of people watching. That put unfamiliar pressure on me. There was expectation and certainly a huge change from what I was used to. I remember everything going very quickly. It was hard.
It was a great experience though. One week later I finished T-15 and leading amateur in the Australian Open, playing alongside then U.S PGA champion Steve Elkington in the last round. I was never really in contention to win, but I did have the satisfaction of beating Steve by three shots. After the doubts of the week before, I proved to myself that I had the game – both physical and mental – to compete with the pros.
Anyway, I wasn’t finished learning. A year later I was in contention again at the Vic Open. And, again, I was playing with Leaney. I finished third or fourth and Stephen won. He was just too experienced and patient for me. While he was playing conservatively, I was aggressive. But overall, I handled myself much better. I was in the mix, even if I didn’t win.
In those days it was looked upon as normal for even elite amateurs to waste a few shots. Pros were wise and canny. They understood how to win. It wasn’t about hitting great shots all the time. It was about hitting shots good enough to have
less shots than anyone else. Plus, generally speaking, the pros had better short games back then. They simply got round more efficiently than did even the best amateurs.
So, I was very much an amateur, something Nick Dunlap clearly is not. The events I just described were all – even the Australian Open – smaller than anything on the PGA Tour. And I have to say that, at least in one respect, the event Nick won has to be one of the more difficult to win. He had to shoot 29-under-par for four rounds and only won by a shot. That’s the sort of number you normally get your head around only after a few years on tour.
On the other hand, what I will also say about Nick’s victory is that it came at a place where you might not need all the experience you gather as a pro. The courses in the Californian desert are not the same as a Riviera or a Muirfield Village, where the rough is thick and the greens are firm and fast. Also, the weather is perfect and there are high-handicappers in the field. So, the course is set up so that the amateurs can get round in a decent score and time.
But I digress. It remains extremely difficult for an amateur to beat a field of professionals who are used to playing in a tour environment 30 times a year. For them, it’s a job they know inside out. It was an amazing performance by Nick. Almost unbelievable. The PGA Tour is a hard place to win. Even great players struggle to win there. Look at Tommy Fleetwood, one of the best players in the world but yet to win a PGA Tour event.
The great thing is that Dunlap is far from alone. Gordon Sargent is the No.1 ranked amateur in the world, was low amateur in the 2023 U.S Open and looks like he has a game that will prosper when he turns pro. Ludvig Åberg preceded Sargent as No.1 amateur in the world and look what he has achieved in only a few months out of the amateur ranks – wins on the DP World Tour and PGA Tour, and a Ryder Cup debut. As soon as he turned pro it was clear he was immediately one of the leading players on the planet.
Things like that never used to happen. Even Baddeley needed a few years as a pro to really establish himself. Shane Lowry took a while, too, after winning the Irish Open as an amateur.
A big part of this change is the fact that golf is so well coached these days. Where teaching the game was once a bit of a dark art, today it is a lot more scientific and structured. Everyone gets good teaching now. So the swings are so much better. The leading amateurs now are ten years ahead of where my generation was. By the time they are out of their teens their swings are ‘sorted.’ Physically they are already at or close to tour level.
Mentally too. Where my friends and I used to read the results of events across the globe in magazines and newspapers, today’s youngsters are exposed to the very best players on television and across social media. Nothing surprises them. They know what great looks like. They know what numbers – ball speed etc – the best players produce. The information is all there.
At events like the Sandbelt Invitational I’ve been fortunate to play with some promising teenagers. I smile to myself at how advanced many are. They all have pure actions. All they need to do is get more experience of competitive golf to be ready for almost anything. That’s the last piece of the puzzle. There are many more Nick Dunlaps out there.