Nick Dunlap fired a bogey-free 63 at Black Desert, hitting every fairway and offering a glimpse of the player who won twice on the PGA Tour in 2024.
For one afternoon at the Bank of Utah Championship, Nick Dunlap looked like himself again.
The 22-year-old opened with a bogey-free 8-under 63 at Black Desert Resort, putting himself near the top of the leaderboard and producing his lowest PGA Tour round since the 2024 Texas Children’s Houston Open.
More importantly, Dunlap did something he almost never does anymore: he hit every fairway.
That matters because driving has become the biggest problem in his game. Dunlap entered the week ranked 157th out of 157 players in Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee, losing more than one stroke per round in the category.
He also sits 167th in the FedExCup standings and has made only eight cuts in 19 starts this season.
Thursday looked completely different.
Dunlap birdied three straight holes early, turned in 4-under 31 and added four more birdies on his second nine. The highlight came at the par-3 third, where he buried a 39-foot birdie putt. He finished with eight birdies, no bogeys and more than 100 feet of putts made.
“I had my fade back finally,” Dunlap said.
That simple sentence says plenty.
Dunlap burst onto the scene in 2024 by becoming the first amateur to win on the PGA Tour since Phil Mickelson in 1991 when he captured The American Express.
Later that year, he won the Barracuda Championship as a professional, becoming the first player in Tour history to win as both an amateur and pro in the same season.
Since then, the trajectory has changed dramatically.
His off-the-tee struggles have made consistent scoring difficult, and his results have reflected it. He finished 135th in the FedExCup last season and hasn’t recorded a top-10 finish in 2026.
So no, one round doesn’t fix everything.
Dunlap admitted as much.
“I think I’m finally on the right track with some stuff,” he said.
That’s the real takeaway from Thursday.
The 63 was impressive. Hitting every fairway was even more encouraging.
For a player whose talent has never been questioned, the question now is whether one clean round can finally become something more.
