PGA Tour faces fight to keep Nick Dunlap away from LIV Golf as win reminds us of what matters
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As the professional game sweats on a peace deal that will basically come down to dollars and as Jon Rahm’s Saudi overlords set about spending even more to present him with a worthy LIV team, along comes Nick Dunlap with a very timely lesson.
Here is a kid who cried his eyes out on the 18th green after winning a £7 million PGA Tour event – and did not collect a dime. As a reminder of what truly matters in the sport, Dunlap’s historic victory can be appreciated as a message from the Gods. Or at least from the R&A.
Now, after denying the likes of former world No 1 Justin Thomas at the American Express Championship to become the first amateur to prevail on the US circuit since Phil Mickelson in 1991, golf becomes a business for Dunlap.
He is a big deal and will attract big deals and, guess what, he is managed by GSE Worldwide. The spectre called LIV already looms large.
A few years ago, the R&A and US Golf Association permitted amateurs to have agents and allowed these managers to negotiate unrestricted sponsorship deals. Granted, amateurs are still only allowed to win a maximum of $1,000 [£785] in prizes, but they can have huge endorsements.
That is why Dunlap will not have been bothered about the missing £1.2 million that instead went to Christiaan Bezuidenhout in second. He signed a contract with Adidas before winning the US Amateur last summer, a triumph that earned him pro invites, such as this one in California.
GSE made sure of it. Just as that New York agency ensured that Bryson DeChambeau got a nine-figure fee to join LIV and that 10 more of its clients also collected heavily in forming almost a quarter of Greg Norman’s roster.
So many of GSE’s golfers have crossed over – Sergio Garcia and Paul Casey to name but two more – that there is a joke in the locker room that the initials stand for “Gimme Saudi Envelope”.
However, by the tone of his winner’s press conference, Dunlap is not interested and his only dilemma is whether to leave behind his team-mates – and, yes, his degree course – at the University of Alabama and accept the two-year PGA Tour exemption. He is in the Masters regardless and as he has hurtled to world No 68 is well in sight of qualifying as a pro for the Open, US Open and USPGA.
Decisions, decisions. Alas, Dunlap has already have been transported from fantasy land to the real world, and here the finance matters. Indeed, it counted straight away for all those on social media who quickly went into uproar at the home-schooled 20-year-old from the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains being denied the winning cheque. He beat this quality field fair and square. Same tees, same fairways, same greens, same holes. He warranted it. And Bezuidenhout clearly did not deserve such a hefty consolation. So why?
The answer is, as ever, written deep within the sacred rulebook penned by the R&A and the USGA. Without boring you with the exact language of The Rules of Amateur Status – with all its clauses and sub-clauses and dashes and colons and semi-colons – in order to maintain the distinction, an amateur must state before a pro event if he or she has turned pro. He or she cannot do so afterwards.
He or she cannot hedge their bets and decide ‘oh, I missed the cut’ so I’ll stay as I am’ or ‘I made 50 grand so I’ll jump now thank you very much’. The rulebook demands the golfer has a more cerebral approach to joining the paid ranks than merely the desire to cash in.
Amateur status is to be cherished and there has to be boundaries. That is what the governing bodies reckon anyway. And with good reason. It is the pure form of the sport and right now, purity is a priceless commodity in golf, in every sense of the noun.
In truth, nobody should be aggrieved on Dunlap’s behalf. Certainly he was not looking for any sympathy, running around the final green shouting ‘show me the money’ like a demented Jerry Maguire. He was captured in the euphoria of self awe, entrapped in that wondrous mind-fog of struggling to accept that he had achieved his childhood dream far quicker than he ever dared speculate.
In those almost surreal seconds late on Sunday, the joy was focused solely on fulfilment. Dunlap wore a “what just happened?” look. It was a clean, unadulterated expression and, in these tawdry times, in which multi-millionaires seem utterly oblivious to the hardships taking place outside of the country clubs, it was needed and very much appreciated.
Alas, in the twinkling of the silverware, this glorious scene was contaminated by all that talk of recompense and riches. Naturally, it was impossible to ignore that golden door swinging open for Dunlap, and that pathway beyond lit up by diamonds, but for a few brief and blessed moments, those rewards were not important.
As for the economics, if Dunlap jumps now, he would be guaranteed a minimum of £400,000 for each Tour season, regardless of how he performed. Furthermore, as he has also qualified for the remaining seven “Signature Events” – those £16 million, limited field, no-cut tournaments introduced by the Tour simply to stop the elite exodus – that will be at least another cumulative £200,000 for finishing dead last each week.
Of course, this 6ft 3in specimen will fare rather better than that and with so many great young players coming through (Ludvig Aberg, Nicolai Hojgaard, Min Woo Lee, Gordon Sargent) he can be part of a special uprising.
So do not feel a pang of sympathy for Dunlap and any perceived shortfall in his glory. Yet maybe give a thought to Hunter Hamrick. As the winning caddie, he would normally have received 10 percent of £1.2 million. Instead? Well, what is 10 percent of sod all?
