Nick Dunlap’s recent win at the PGA Tour’s The American Express triggered memories of another amateur doing well against the pros at an important event.
Dunlap is a 20-year-old college student with a world ranking of 4 129, but he held off South Africa’s Christiaan Bezuidenhout to become the first amateur since Phil Mickelson in 1991 to win a PGA Tour event. The big winner, in a financial sense, was Bezuidenhout, who scooped Dunlap’s winner’s cheque for $1.512-million (some R28-million), while finishing second.
Mickelson went on to win six Majors and 45 international tournaments after turning pro, so there’s that for Dunlap to hold on to.
Which brings me to Ernie Els.
In 1988 he represented South Africa at The Amateur Championships at Royal Porthcawl, along with Ben Fouchee, Ian Hutchings and Neville Clark. Fouche reached the 36-hole final and quickly turned pro the same year, the first of the quartet to do so. His big moment came at the 1991 Bell’s Cup at Mowbray, when he won 1,000 cases of the sponsor’s finest for a hole-in-one at the 16th. I was standing behind the tee box at the time and he turned and said, ‘We’re going to try make a dent in this tonight!’
Els waited a little longer, turning professional in 1989. However, before doing so, he started cutting his teeth against the best pros of the time. He was that good.
On 1 February 1989, Els, then still only 19, teed up at Glendower at the Protea Assurance SA Open. As we all know, it’s a trophy every golfer would like to see their name engraved on. Gary Player’s name featured 13 times on the famous silverware, while Bobby Locke was a nine-time winner.
In 1989, the American Tom Wadsworth held off Tom Lehman to get his slice of history. But, on his own in fourth was Ernie Els. A cheque of R18 000 beckoned for the gifted teenager, had he been a pro. In those days you could fill a super-market trolley for R100, while a place called the Red Lion Tavern had a R9.95 prawn special for eight people and free entry to the disco on Fridays and Saturdays. Don’t ask how I know this.
But there was Els, empty-handed after making the world sit up and take notice of his talents. Fourth at the South African Open and with professional contracts being waved in his face.
I recall phoning Ernie for a couple of quotes for the newspaper after his heroics at Glendower.
Ever the laid-back man that the world has come to know, he sighed. ‘I’m not too fussed about the money, I’ll turn pro when the time is right. But there’s one thing that gets under my skin. I have to give my prize money to the fifth-placed guy on the leaderboard – and that’s Tony Johnstone!’ And then he laughed. All a bit of banter of course, which Johnstone would have enjoyed.
So, as much as Bezuidenhout benefited from Dunlap’s amateur status, so too did Johnstone from Ernie’s in 1989.
Later that year, Ernie did turn professional, and he quickly made up for lost time. His first professional win came at the 1990 Spoornet SA Classic at Kimberley on the Sunshine Tour’s Winter Tour and then his first win on the Sunshine Tour Summer Tour came at the 1991 Amatola Sun Classic at King William’s Town.
He has since gone on to become a global legend, a winner of four Majors with 75 professional wins worldwide, including five SA Opens.
So, the young Nick Dunlap can take heart. He won’t achieve greatness like Mickelson and Els, surely, but he should carve out a very successful career going forward.
– This column first appeared in the March 2024 issue of Compleat Golfer magazine.
Photo: Orlando Ramirez/Getty Images
