AUGUSTA, Ga. — As Nick Dunlap paced up the steeply pitched 18th fairway on a breezy blue-sky Thursday at Augusta National, he had the stage to himself. With his playing partners, Billy Horschel and Bob MacIntyre, already on the green and sizing up their birdie tries, the scene, in part, resembled what we’ve seen at so many Masters Sundays past: the champion enjoying a victor’s stroll up the par-4 last.
The murmurs of the patrons standing behind the viewing pen left of the green, however, told a very different story.
How in the hell do you do that?!
He wants to get off this golf course as fast as he can.
Is that 16?!
Indeed, it was a 16, as in the green number posted next to Dunlap’s name on the iconic tabular leaderboard that overlooks the green. As in sixteen over par through 17 holes.
And about to get worse.
Dunlap had hooked his tee shot into the trees, then advanced his next shot just three feet. His third swing — another punch — reached the fairway but ran straight through it, leaving him still with no look at the green. Dunlap played his fourth into the fat of the fairway and his fifth, a crisply struck wedge from 113 yards, to three feet. As Dunlap’s ball zipped back toward the hole, Horschel looked back down the fairway and gave his partner a fist pump. Moral support, though the shell-shocked look in Dunlap’s eyes as he neared the green suggested the 21-year-old needed something much stronger than that.
Dunlap would hole the putt for double to cap the kind of round that makes you want to stow away your clubs in the basement — and maybe never retrieve them. His final tally sounded like a frat-boy burger order: seven bogies, four doubles, one triple. In numeral form, it read like this: 43-47—90, which was the highest first-round score at a Masters since Ben Crenshaw signed for 91 in 2015; Gentle Ben was 63 then and playing in his final Masters. The highest score, period, at a Masters would belong to Billy Casper, who shot 106 in the first round in 2005, but that mark is unofficial because Casper didn’t ink his card. So, the ignominious honor instead goes to amateur Charles Kunkle Jr., who in the fourth round in 1956 carded a 23-over 95.
Still, Dunlap’s round surely was more stunning, because he’s not an out-of-his-element amateur, or past-his-prime ex-champ; Dunlap won the U.S. Junior Amateur less than four years ago and the U.S. Amateur just two years ago, making him the only player not named Tiger Woods to claim both trophies. Five months after his Am win, Dunlap played on a sponsor’s exemption in the PGA Tour’s Palm Springs event, The American Express, and shot a 12-under 60 in the third round before triumphing a day later to become the first amateur to win on the PGA Tour since Phil Mickelson in 1991 and the second-youngest Tour winner in 90 years. A week after the Amex, Dunlap turned pro. He struggled through the spring and half the summer, but then won again, in July, at the Barracuda Championship near Lake Tahoe. He would finish the season in the top 50 in the FedEx Cup standings and with nearly $3 million in earnings.
This year has been less prosperous. Dunlap made the cut in his first six starts but only once finished in the top 10. In each of his next three starts in the lead-up to the Masters — Bay Hill, the Players and Texas Open — he missed the weekend and twice shot 80. At Bay Hill last month, Dunlap said he was working on his driving accuracy, chipping and lag putting, and generally trying to become more consistent. “The one thing about golf,” he said, “is you never quite have it figured out.”
And some days, you can’t figure anything out.
Dunlap’s opening swing in this 89th Masters proved to be an omen: a tugged tee ball into the trees left of the first fairway. Tiger Woods has a habit of doing the same on this hole but also possesses an otherworldly knack for quickly righting the ship. On this Thursday, the squall overwhelmed Dunlap. He bogeyed the first, then added two more bogies at 3 and 4. At the beefy par-4 5th, Dunlap spun his third shot off the green and made 7. After a couple of pars on 7 and 8 came another bogey at 9.
Down in Amen Corner, more hell. Dunlap found the water on all three holes — the par-4 11th, par-3 12th and par-5 13th — to play the famed stretch in 6-5-6. He would rinse yet one more ball at the par-3 16th, which led to another double, before the closing messiness at 18. He hit only six fairways and the same number of greens. If there was a bright spot, he did not once three-putt.
After Dunlap rolled in his three-footer at the last, he clasped hands with his playing partners and their caddies. As he walked toward his bag, which his own caddie, Hunter Hamrick, had positioned near the back side of the green, Hamrick gave his boss five quick pats on the back. Few words, if any, were exchanged because what words could be exchanged?
After making his round official in scoring, Dunlap, by way of a green-coated media official, declined to speak with a reporter then disappeared behind the clubhouse. So, too, did Hamrick, who placed down his bag in a sheltered walkway and, in hushed tones, began deconstructing the round with another member of Dunlap’s team. Hamrick’s green Masters-issued caddie cap was pushed back on his head. He looked spent and, when approached by a reporter, said that he, too, didn’t feel much like talking. In fairness, there probably wasn’t much to add.
One of Dunlap’s partners, though, did offer some color. “To be honest,” MacIntyre said after signing for a three-over 75, “he was struggling out there today [but] his attitude was solid. He didn’t get in the way. He didn’t lay off anything that was going to affect his two other playing partners because we’ve got a job to do.
“I feel for him today, but he’ll come back.”
And soon.
Dunlap’s Friday starting time is 12:50 p.m.
