They’ll have to forgive his innocence.

He’s just 20. This was his first time. And maybe he was always supposed to be at the Masters as if it was a pre-determined fate. But it probably wasn’t supposed to happen this soon.

When he got to Augusta National Golf Club on Monday morning, Nick Dunlap spent about 90 minutes just walking around. He gets to skip the sweeping lines for the Golf Shop, so he paced through it about three times.

He went out for an afternoon practice round, making his way to Amen Corner a bit before 3 p.m. Monday. He stopped with caddie Hunter Hamrick in the middle of the famous Hogan Bridge to the 12th green as they made their iconic walk.

He pulled out his phone and took a selfie. Technically, phones aren’t allowed on the course at Augusta National.

“Yeah, I don’t know if I was allowed to or not, but…” Dunlap said, trailing off.

That last four months have been a whirlwind for the former Alabama golfer, so could be seen as a reprieve to be at the event he’d dreamed of and qualified for all the way back in the seemingly long-lost past of August 2023. He was an amateur then, coming off a win at the prestigious U.S. Amateur championship.

But with a life-changing -29 score and a January win on the PGA Tour in La Quinta, California, at The American Express, Dunlap decided to become a professional. Entering the tournament as an amateur, Dunlap couldn’t collect the check that weekend which would have paid more than $1.5 million. He was the first amateur to win on the PGA Tour since Phil Mickelson in 1991.

He was faced with a decision, but it became universally agreed upon by Dunlap, his family and coaches: the time to become a professional was now.

If 2024 has proven anything for Dunlap, it’s that he truly can’t say where he’ll be in a few months, even a few weeks. So, at the Masters, he made sure to take in this moment. The front camera of his phone proved it.

“That’s what I told Hunter walking off that bridge,” Dunlap said. “Life is too short for special things like that. May not get a chance to come back; maybe I’ll play 20 more times. I have no idea.”

***

Maybe the Nick Dunlap origin story begins with a line of divots on the sixth fairway at Greystone Golf & County Club in Hoover.

Jon Gibbons — the head golf pro at Greystone — said he received a phone call about those divots. They were in perfectly straight lines, clearly indicating someone had been practicing, and using the course to do so instead of the driving range.

So Gibbons went out to see what was up.

“And I remember walking out on the fairway and I look up,” Gibbons said. “There’s their house.”

The Dunlap’s lived just behind the sixth hole then. And Gibbons already knew a bit about the only child who lived there — who was around 12 years old, Gibbons recalls. The Dunlap family were members and the soon-to-be-teenager had already been playing golf for years. He went through a few clinics, Gibbons said, and spent time with an instructor on the course.

Gibbons first met Dunlap when he was 10. He didn’t quite see anything special then, but about a year later heard Dunlap had shot a 59 at Highland Park Golf Course in Birmingham — a tournament Dunlap won as a seventh grader by more than 10 shots, still a course record.

So, it was obvious. Dunlap had clearly made those divots. Who else would be there? Who else would make them in such perfectly straight lines?

Gibbons said he saw his role as a mentor. That means he has to get on some of the kids sometimes. It is still a country club, after all. The stories of Dunlap at Greystone range from extra work for the groundskeepers to driving his family’s golf cart before he was of age to fishing in the water on the 18th hole.

“You just can’t, man,” Gibbons would say. “I’m sorry.”

“Why not,” Dunlap would respond.

“I’m sorry, it’s just a policy man,” Gibbons said back.

Dunlap tried to push the limits, and on the day Gibbons had received the call about the divots — the end of a slow day on the course — Dunlap had grabbed a wedge and a bag of balls and just began to practice.

But Dunlap wasn’t supposed to. It tears up the course before golfers come the next day. So Gibbons called the Dunlap house just to check, not that he really needed to confirm. It, of course, was Dunlap.

But it takes a golfer with quite a bit of skill to make perfectly straight lines of divots.

It was probably then that Gibbons realized this kid might be a bit different. By the time Dunlap was 15 or 16, Gibbons said, he knew it for sure.

Dunlap’s family moved to Huntsville, where he was born, and the accolades kept following.

Dunlap won the Alabama junior boys state championship in 2018. He won the 2021 Dustin Johnson World Junior Championship in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. He was named the 2021 American Junior Golf Association boys golfer of the year. He won the 2022 U.S. Boys Junior Championship individual title. He was the number one ranked junior golfer in the class of 2022, according to Golfweek.

He’s won everywhere he’s been. The professional 20-year-old golfer Gibbons sees now was always going to be here. It was more a question of when.

“Are you surprised by this,” Gibbons said people ask him.

“Absolutely not,” he’ll always respond.

***

Jay Seawell didn’t think Dunlap would make it four years in Tuscaloosa anyway.

The Alabama men’s golf head coach said he tries to prepare himself for any situation with his golfers, but he didn’t have a script for this one. The plan originally was for Dunlap to get his PGA Tour card through the newly formed PGA Tour University accelerated program. Dunlap’s course schedule set him up to graduate next year and he’d become a professional on June 1, 2025.

“That plan changed on a six-foot putt,” Seawell said.

Seawell said he first knew Dunlap when he was 11 and coming to Alabama’s golf camp. When Dunlap was 12, Seawell knew he eventually planned to recruit him. But Dunlap was the best player in his class. It wasn’t an easy process.

“I was a little sh-t, not gonna lie,” Dunlap said of his recruitment process during a January press conference.

Seawell was the first coach to recruit Dunlap. with a slight head start anyway. Dunlap wanted to play at Alabama all along.

At Alabama, Dunlap won two tournaments in a year and a half and made the 2023 Walker Cup team. He was the No. 1 ranked college golfer at the end of the 2023 fall season.

After the fall, Dunlap went out on a hunting trip.

“A lot of people sit on the couch,” Seawell said. “He gets in a stand and shoots deer.”

Hunting is Dunlap’s mental health break, Seawell said. It helped him reset, to focus before a big spring ahead — even if it didn’t go like they thought it would.

Because it ended when that putt to win the American Express left Dunlap with his decision. Leaving his college team would be like losing the star quarterback on a team with College Football Playoff aspirations, Dunlap described. But what happened behind the scenes was a strenuous 48 hours of thought between winning the American Express and making a choice he announced in a Jan. 25 press conference.

Seawell said that time included several hours’ worth of meetings between himself and Dunlap as well as Dunlap as his parents and others close to him.

“It was very easy, but hard,” Seawell said. “Because as we said, the decision was very easy, but it was a hard one because of who it affected.”

It was an easy choice. Dunlap had his route to the professional level right there, his dream literally arrived. Turning down the opportunity to be a professional now with a year of college still ahead of him didn’t make sense. Seawell knew that.

He knew it still wasn’t easy for Dunlap. Once a player becomes a professional, they can’t change their mind. Their college eligibility is gone.

But this was the right choice. The time was right. Seawell made sure Dunlap knew he was making the right choice.

“You are not letting us down,” Seawell told Dunlap. “If anything, you are lifting ourselves because this is what all our players aspire to do, and as a coach it’s what I aspire our players to do.”

***

If anything, he was probably supposed to be this year’s low amateur.

Traditionally, the Masters awards the amateur golfer with the best finishing position a trophy at Sunday’s final presentation alongside that year’s winner. Dunlap certainly would have been the best amateur in the field.

But he’s no longer eligible for that. No longer able to sit at Monday night’s traditional amateur dinner at the Augusta National clubhouse.

Only a few months old as a professional, Dunlap is learning quickly.

“Got to pay everybody now,” Dunlap joked. “Everybody was kind of helping me out before. Nothing is really free anymore.”

He’s also seeing what he learned from Seawell become reality on the PGA Tour.

Since winning the American Express, Dunlap has played in six PGA Tour events as a professional and made four cuts. He’s made $318,965 in winnings thus far, with his best result coming two weeks before the Masters at the Houston Open finishing tied for 11th.

“Flying all over the country playing and events with, you know, the best players in the world for millions of dollars,” Seawell said of Dunlap. “That was a new world for him too. It’s taken him a while to get his feet on the ground.”

It all brings him to the Masters, where he continues to listen. He’s been playing golf’s most famous course with some of the best minds to pick from.

Dunlap played his practice round Monday with Neal Shipley — the runner-up to Dunlap in the U.S. Amateur. He played on Tuesday with world No. 1 ranked and former Masters winner Scottie Scheffler.

“Nick, no, he’s too good,” Scheffler said. “I don’t want to give him any of my secrets.”

Scheffler said Dunlap should probably be going to class right now in Tuscaloosa but here he is at the Masters, a degree put on hold. He said Dunlap asks many questions, and good questions.

He kept asking those questions Wednesday, leaning into Crimson Tide connections in a practice round with Justin Thomas. The duo joined up with Max Homa. He played in the laid-back Par 3 Contest with fellow Alabama product Lee Hodges later in the day.

On Thursday and Friday, he’ll fall into the Masters annual pairing of the reigning U.S. Amateur champion alongside the defending Masters champion. The tournament stuck with tradition despite Dunlap’s professional status. So, in his major championship debut, Dunlap will stroll around Augusta National as a pro, with Jon Rahm.

Just off the 10th green Wednesday, Dunlap practiced his chipping. He did the same on the 11th, rolling a few balls down the slope toward the 12th tee box and hitting them back up. Homa came up to stand behind him, pointing out the undulations of the green. Then Thomas joined too, watching Dunlap’s stroke.

It’s the day before he’ll hit his first competitive shot at Augusta, and Dunlap then walked up to the iconic 12th tee box one more time afront the cauldron of patrons in Amen Corner.

These are the days he can put his focus on golf alongside a two-time major champion who wears the same script A. Thomas was in the final group with Dunlap when the then-amateur won the American Express.

And here Dunlap was, walking across the Hogan bridge again, Thomas by his side. He looks to the left down Rae’s Creek, to the right at the 12th green. He had already taken it in, but the jib camera hanging overhead still waiting to capture the sacred walk.

Dunlap’s ready for his moment now.

Now or never, he’s here.

Matt Cohen covers sports for AL.com. You can follow him on X at @Matt_Cohen_ or email him at [email protected]