As Nick Dunlap tried to win The American Express Sunday afternoon, an amateur trying to beat considerable odds as well as his professional competitors on the PGA Tour, I thought about Fred Haas Jr., who was in Dunlap’s shoes nearly 80 years ago.
In an era when golf tournaments were named for cities not corporations, Haas got a great break in the final round of the 1945 Memphis Invitational, an event forever known for being where Byron Nelson’s streak of 11 consecutive victories came to end, a record that resides with Joe DiMaggio and Wilt Chamberlain and a few other amazing feats on a shelf that is out of reach.
After some uncharacteristically ordinary golf earlier that week in Tennessee, Nelson had gotten with two strokes of the surprising Haas, a 30-year-old insurance salesman, through five holes at Chickasaw Country Club. On the par-3 sixth, Nelson struck one of pin-seeking shots. No one could have called it a laser because it would be 15 years before the first one was built. But by any name Nelson’s 7-iron was beautiful, and for an instant, as his ball descended, it looked like it was going in for an ace to erase Haas’s lead and give Iron Byron the momentum to go forth and win his 12th straight.
As Nelson’s ball came to earth, though, it only flirted with the cup and bounced hard off the bottom of the flagstick, scurrying 40 feet away. For the first time in forever, it wasn’t going to be Nelson’s day. “I think he was a cinch to catch me,” Haas told me in 1995. “But he got the toughest break in the world on the sixth. If that shot goes in, I think he would have won.” Haas went on to win, etching his name in the annals of sports trivia.
Dunlap, a 20-year-old who plays golf at the University of Alabama, is also now part of sports trivia, and he too got a break on his way to a rare amateur tour victory. Sam Burns, with whom Dunlap was tied going to the water-guarded, par-3 17th at PGA West’s Stadium Course, dumped his shot in the water on the hole named “Alcatraz” and made a double bogey, giving Dunlap a bit of room and he vied to breathe some very rare air.
Christiaan Bezuidenhout, up ahead, birdied the 72nd hole to inch within a stroke of Dunlap, who safely parred No. 17, hitting the green before Burns’ costly miscue. Dunlap needed a finishing par 4 to become the first amateur to win on the PGA Tour since Phil Mickelson in 1991 at Tucson. After a poor tee shot into a bunker, Dunlap scrambled and got what he needed, a six-footer being the difference.
Dunlap didn’t need this victory to prove that he was an up-and-comer. Already, he was in Formula 1 fast company, his 2023 U.S. Amateur victory having allowed him to join Tiger Woods as the only golfers the U.S. Junior Amateur and U.S. Amateur. Now, the lean and likable college sophomore has done something even Woods didn’t do, win a tour event before turning pro.
Beating the pros should be a harbinger of good things for Dunlap, if some of the amateur winners since the 1940s are a reliable indicator. Cary Middlecoff (1945 North and South Open), Gene Littler (1954 San Diego Open) and Mickelson are Hall of Famers. Doug Sanders (1956 Canadian Open) won 20 tour events and threatened in several majors, his missed tiddler at the 1970 Open Championship a billboard for those close calls. Scott Verplank (1985 Western Open), had to deal with Type 1 Diabetes and numerous injuries but still won four times as a pro after beating Jim Thorpe in a playoff outside Chicago shortly after he turned 21 years old.
“Such an impressive performance by Nick Dunlap,” Mickelson posted on X Sunday. “Congratulations on an incredible win. This is just the beginning.”
It sure seems that way.