A new pro finds out about Pebble—and wind

PEBBLE BEACH — That joke, about small golfer warnings? Nobody was laughing at Pebble Beach, particularly Nick Dunlap, the PGA Tour’s new kid on the tee.

“Different weather here than at La Quinta” said Dunlap who down in the warmth of the desert made history. “It’s windy and chilly here.”

Indeed. It’s AT&T weather here, hardly unusual on the Monterey Peninsula in mid-winter, where historically Mother Nature often is the dominant  personality. 

Dunlap, 20, should be the story. A week and a half ago he became the first amateur since Phil Mickelson in 1991 to win a pro golf tournament. Then, no surprise, announced he was going professional.  

Yet, as we well know, for the AT&T, the weather takes the headlines and the TV highlights. Among the notable comments from an event started in the 1930s as the Crosby Pro-Am was run by the late singer-comedian Phil Harris, who insisted after a deluge, “I’m going to get out of these wet clothes and into a dry martini.”

What Dunlap wanted to get into was the money list and standings for the Fed-Ex Cup. He was unable to collect the $1.5 million winner’s check for the victory in the American Express tournament. After all, there does seem to be some true difference between amateur and pro golf.

But he was wearing Adidas logos for a long while, and surely that wasn’t because of his sense of fashion

Dunlap, who took the U.S. Amateur last year, is the new face of golf, bringing in the curious as well as the serious.

There may never be another Tiger Woods, but that doesn’t mean someone like Dunlap won’t fill the grandstands as he fills his wallet.  

In interviews immediately after winning the American Express, Dunlap seemed both humble and perceptive. His two years at the University of Alabama were well spent learning to deal with people as they were learning to deal with breaking greens.

“Trying to figure out what I’m going to do with school, moving forward,” said Dunlap. “Whether to take a couple of classes or drop (out) for the semester.”

Dunlap is a winner. He also is a learner. There’s so much about the Tour and about life he must experience even though his unexpected breakthrough, which made him exempt on Tour and qualified him for the Masters and British Open, elevated him into a special category.

“Right now,” he said, “I’m trying to enjoy it as much as I can. I know that in golf you have your ups and downs. Right now I’m on an up, which is awesome. That’s why we play golf. The downs make these times so great.” 

No matter how hard the wind blows.