Golf phenom Nick Dunlap talks about going pro: "It was the easiest, hardest decision I've ever had to make"
Nick Dunlap announced at a press conference Thursday that he was leaving the University of Alabama golf team to join the PGA Tour.
At just 20 years old, Dunlap made waves in the golfing world as the first amateur golfer to win a PGA Tour event in 33 years.
He spoke to CBS News after the announcement about the difficult decision to go pro and how he broke the news to his college teammates two days before going public.
"It was the easiest, hardest decision I've ever had to make," Dunlap told CBSN anchors Vladimir Duthiers and Anne-Marie Green. "And it was always a dream of mine to play in the PGA tour and play professionally, but telling [my teammates] that I'm leaving them mid-season ... I feel like I'm leaving them to dry a little bit, so that was really difficult for me, but they were all super supportive and wanted me to take this opportunity to chase my dream."
The reigning U.S. Amateur champion became the tour's first amateur winner since Phil Mickelson at the Tucson Open in 1991. Playing in his fourth tour event, Dunlap became the seventh amateur winner since 1945 — and only the third since 1957.
Dunlap and Tiger Woods are the only players to win both the U.S. Amateur and the U.S. Junior Amateur. While Dunlap was able to celebrate Sunday for one of the most impressive performances in recent golf history, he didn't get to take home the $1.5 million first-place prize, which goes to Christiaan Bezuidenhout after the South African's final-round 65.
Dunlap said that he's feeling added pressure as more people come to know about him, but he's staying focused on playing his best.
Noting that "golf has its ups and downs," Dunlap said that "you might get some good breaks and bad breaks, and I was fortunate enough to get some good ones last weekend. And, you know, everything kind of fell in place, so hopefully that happens again sometime soon, but if not, golf is a weird game."
Weird, but special, Dunlap said, noting that he's driven to play golf because it's simultaneously challenging and rewarding. It hinges on your individual efforts, but you get to celebrate as a team when you win, he said.
Dunlap told CBS News his biggest inspiration is Tiger Woods, but that he never imagined himself as a golfer because he grew up playing other sports. His father played baseball at college, and Dunlap said he grew up playing baseball, football and basketball.
"For whatever reason I was out on the range with [my father] one day, and he's not very good himself, and I, just, for whatever reason, picked up a golf club and started playing and fell in love with how difficult it is and trying to perfect it," Dunlap said.
Dunlap believes golf is impossible to perfect, which is part of its draw. "You can always get better," he said, "and whenever you feel like you're doing something special, golf never fails to kick you right in the teeth."