Why young stars like Nick Dunlap capture our imagination

Nick Dunlap showed several times Sunday that he is a special talent. He held off two of the game’s stars, Justin Thomas and Sam Burns, to become the first amateur in more than three decades to win on the PGA TOUR. Dunlap displayed aplomb when he didn’t let himself get sidelined by a tee shot shanked into the water on PGA WEST’s seventh hole or when he holed clutch putts on holes 16 and 18 and didn’t succumb to the stress of the island green sandwiched between.

Related: Nick Dunlap’s timeline to becoming a PGA TOUR winner

But it was a moment after the victory, in his post-round press conference, that illustrated why Dunlap’s victory captured the collective imagination of the golf world. Dunlap, still a sophomore at the University of Alabama (at least for a few more days), was asked by PGATOUR.COM’s Paul Hodowanic if there was any homework he was supposed to be attending to that Sunday night.

“Yes,” Dunlap said. Then he smiled. “Probably won’t do it, though.”

It was a moment when this intriguing prospect, after showing incredible physical prowess and mental fortitude throughout the day, revealed a precociousness that belied his athletic gifts. Millions of dollars are awaiting Dunlap for his feats, but this moment was a brief reminder that he is still a kid. His eagerness to shrug off classroom assignments, and the fact that he earned $0 for playing golf last week, are two things that everyone watching could relate to.

That was just one reason for the excitement around his victory. Few sports get more enthused about young talent than golf, and Dunlap’s win proved that once again.

From Bobby Jones to Bobby Clampett, Ty Tryon to Tiger Woods, golf has a long history of young talents who have enthralled us. Add Horton Smith, Jack Nicklaus, Seve Ballesteros, Phil Mickelson, Rory McIlroy and Jordan Spieth to the list.

All of them gave past generations the same sense of awe that Dunlap elicited Sunday. Golf's individualistic nature and the longevity of careers are two reasons for the fascination that surrounds such players.

In other sports, you have to worry about incredible talents being wasted on bad teams (apologies to Mike Trout and Caleb Williams). Not golf. It also allows its amateur stars to moonlight in competition with the pros, often producing intriguing glimpses of potential. A Heisman Trophy winner doesn’t get one week to moonlight for an NFL team before the draft. And no sport affords greater longevity than golf, meaning players like Dunlap potentially have decades to amass a Hall of Fame resume.

In a few years, those who watched Sunday may be able to compare the experience to watching the Beatles amass their reps in those Liverpool (England) pubs. But the somber side of this coin is that golf also offers no guarantees.

The names listed above prove that. Even for all of his incredible amateur feats, who could have predicted that Tiger Woods would 82 times on the PGA TOUR? Or that Clampett would win just once.

Even Dunlap acknowledged that the future, especially in this mercurial endeavor, is a mystery. Dunlap could win three times. Or 30. These futile attempts to predict the future offers fans and pundits endless debate fodder.

The inherited unpredictability is one reason Dunlap deviated from the precision of his preshot routine on the 18th green Sunday. Were nerves a factor? Of course. But he also wanted to savor the moment. It wasn’t long ago that he was a high-school kid on the practice green at Greystone Golf & Country Club in Birmingham, Alabama, pretending to have this very moment: a 6-foot putt for a PGA TOUR win.

“I took a little bit longer than I normally might, and (to) just take in the moment and (that) nothing’s for granted,” he said Sunday evening. “I may not ever have that chance again, and I just want to embrace it.”

That maturity and perspective have undoubtedly served Dunlap well in a career that’s already seen him accomplish things previously done by the likes of Mickelson and Woods. He’s the first amateur since Mickelson in 1991 to win on the PGA TOUR. He’s the only player other than Woods to win both the U.S. Amateur and U.S. Junior Amateur.

And only Dunlap has won those two titles and a PGA TOUR trophy before turning pro. Now we enter one of the entertaining phases of a player’s career, something that is akin to a honeymoon. We’re still in the midst of that same period with Ludvig Åberg, who is still just six months into his pro career. It’s a brief moment where the innocence of youth intersects with a player’s preternatural ability, often producing endearing anecdotes that only further charm golf fans.

Spieth, who was 19 when he first earned PGA TOUR status, celebrated by playing Texas Hold‘em in the lobby of his hotel with his father, Shawn, and agent, Jay Danzi. The stakes? Peanut M&M's. Åberg has already won two professional titles and played in a Ryder Cup but he lives in a room that he rents for $400 per month from fellow TOUR player Vincent Norrman.

For Dunlap, it was the decision to blow off his homework. A reminder that the latest PGA TOUR winner, though he composed himself like a veteran down the stretch Sunday, is not far removed from van rides and midterms.

He’s part of an enthralling crop of young talent that is either beginning its PGA TOUR career or waiting at the gates. There are now three players age 21 or younger who own PGA TOUR titles: Dunlap, Tom Kim and Akshay Bhatia.

Hours before Dunlap’s win, Stanford senior Michael Thorbjornsen finished 11th in the Hero Dubai Desert Classic. Thorbjornsen, the No. 1 player in PGA TOUR University, already has three top-20s in pro events, including his fourth-place finish at the 2022 Travelers Championship. Vanderbilt junior Gordon Sargent has a PGA TOUR card waiting for him when he turns pro, thanks to the PGA TOUR University Accelerated program.

Sargent, who wowed some of the game’s top players with his clubhead speed at last year’s Masters, won an NCAA Championship as a freshman and was low amateur at last year’s U.S. Open.

Åberg went from college kid to Ryder Cupper in 2023, closing the year by tying the PGA TOUR’s 72-hole scoring record. Nicolai Hojgaard, 22, was the youngest player on either team at last year’s Ryder Cup; he concluded the year by winning the DP World Tour’s season finale, beating all of the top names on that circuit. He and Min Woo Lee both are PGA TOUR members for the first time this year. Lee, 25, had top-10s at last year’s U.S. Open and THE PLAYERS.

“There’s hardly any need for an apprenticeship anymore,” Golf Channel commentator Brandel Chamblee said in 2020, shortly after Viktor Hovland, Collin Morikawa and Matthew Wolff took the TOUR by storm. “They hit the ground like veterans.”

But there’s nothing like watching the kids win. Dunlap showed that again on Sunday.