Amateur Nick Dunlap, already a PGA Tour winner, has turned professional and will make his pro debut at Pebble Beach.
Sound familiar?
Well, Dunlap, the Alabama sophomore who last Sunday at The American Express became the first amateur to win a PGA Tour event in over three decades, isn’t the first amateur Tour champ to launch his pro career on the iconic Monterey Peninsula links. In fact, Phil Mickelson, who won the 1991 Northern Telecom Open as an Arizona State junior, also debuted at Pebble.
Unlike Dunlap, who declared Thursday that he’d be forfeiting his remaining college eligibility in time for next week’s AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, Mickelson opted to return to school for a fourth year. He ended up a four-time All-American and three-time NCAA individual champion. Mickelson then turned pro and qualified for 1992 U.S. Open via final qualifying at Farmington Country Club in Germantown, Tennessee.
“I’m just excited because I can’t think of a better place to start a professional career than Pebble Beach and the U.S. Open,” Mickelson told reporters that day.
“I think I can look back on this day 20, 30 years from now on the start of my professional career and say, ‘I birdied my first hole in my professional debut. Shot 68 in that round in the United States Open Championship.’ I couldn’t be more pleased with the outcome,” Mickelson told reporters before later adding, “I’m just trying to figure out how to play a good second round now.”
Of course, Mickelson wouldn’t figure it out – at least that week. He backed up his 68 with an 81. He doubled the par-4 11th, tripled the par-4 third and carded just one birdie, at the par-5 18th hole.
Five years later, Mickelson got his winning moment at Pebble, winning the Pro-Am in 1998. He’d add wins at Pebble in 2005, 2007, 2012 and 2019.
