When it comes to having an absolute nightmare at The Masters, Nick Dunlap has put himself into the history books after his miserable opening round at Augusta National.
Dunlap show a woeful score of 90 – 18 over par – to end his hopes of making the weekend in one foul swoop.
Thankfully, during round two, the American did fire back and at the time of writing, was sitting at three under par for his second round to bring some respectability to the cause.
Dunlap won praise off Bob MacIntyre for how he handled himself and now, both Max Homa and Justin Rose have offered their advice for the youngster.
Max Homa says what Nick Dunlap can do after his Masters nightmare
At the moment, Max Homa is very much a player dealing with a number of issues in his head when it comes to finding his best golf and he knows all too well about high scores in the last 18 months.
Homa, though, remained positive about Dunlap and admitted it’s something he can put right in a week.
“I mean, just the old adage, tough times don’t last; tough people do,” Homa told the media. “At the end of the day if you get out of your own head it’s just one event. You can miss the cut by one and feel like garbage. It sucks. But always closer than you think type thing.
“I mean, it sucks, but I think we all go through it. It’s tough, but at the end of the day we play again next week. Be back to even.”
Homa has managed to make the cut for the weekend after finding some form to shoot a 70 in round two and be level for the week.
Justin Rose gives advice to Nick Dunlap
Of course, one man who is experienced enough in the game of golf to put bad times behind him and keep on going is the current leader, Justin Rose.
Rose is sitting pretty at eight under par and going into the weekend, is among the favourites to win.
However, taking some time out to speak on Dunlap’s issues, Rose did his best to explain how the young American can overcome things.
“Yeah, I think so. I think you have no choice when you’re young and you haven’t really achieved your goals and your dreams yet and you haven’t been spoiled too much yet with all the trappings that come with good golf,” Rose said.
“I think definitely it gets harder if you go through that really down phase late in your career when you’ve already had so much success. Like I said, when I missed the first 21 cuts, it was like, well, there’s no plan B here. I’ve got to make this happen, make this work.
“Yeah, I mean, listen, I think that’s an anomaly for Nick. I don’t know what happened. Tough day for him. Hopefully he’ll shrug that off, you know what I mean. You don’t want to be dwelling on days like that for sure, and if there’s anyplace that can make you look silly at times, it’s here. Yeah, but hopefully, yeah, that’s one to put behind him.”
Dunlap’s score was just the fourth opening round 90 since the year 2000, with Ben Crenshaw getting the last in 2015. However, Crenshaw was 63 at the time, while the other two – Tommy Aaron and Doug Ford – were 63 and 77 respectively.
Sadly for Dunlap, this is very much one to put in the history books and move on from.
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