The first impression was glorious – a performance as impressive as it gets.

Then a 20-year-old amateur, Nick Dunlap did what no other amateur had done in more than 30 years: win a PGA Tour event. A few months later, he won again. A couple of weeks after that, he contended at a Playoffs event. The golf world collectively agreed this was our next star.

In recent months, though, there have been signs of a potential turnaround. Dunlap shot his lowest round in two years in Utah to contend after 18 holes. It didn’t last through the weekend, but it showed those peak moments are still there. Then he notched a top-25 finish in Bermuda, only his third of the season.

On Thursday, Dunlap shot 8-under 64 at the World Wide Technology Championship, once again putting himself in contention. It’s another step toward reclaiming who Dunlap once was.

“You learn a lot more when you're down than when you're up,” Dunlap said. “You're never as bad as you think you are and you're never as good as you think you are. So I think that's something I'm continuing to tell myself.”

Dunlap’s struggles are directly tied to his inability to drive the ball well consistently, or at all. Dunlap ranks last on Tour in Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee. He’s only had two weeks of above-average driving over the last two seasons. That’s a non-starter to being a successful golfer on the PGA Tour, more so than any other part of the game. Dunlap knows it.

“I'm not trying to drive it great, it's hard to go from being in my eyes awful to one of the best,” Dunlap said. “It's really hard to do, but I just wanted to be comfortable. I felt like if I'm comfortable, the rest of my game's in a really nice spot.”

The change in Mexico isn’t as much swing-related, though progress on that end has been churning for months. What led to Dunlap hitting 13 of 14 fairways at (a very wide-open) El Cardonal at Diamante was a slight change in drivers. Dunlap spent the early week tweaking the driver length. During the height of his struggles, he began playing a shorter driver to help with his control. But now with the swing fundamentals in a better spot, he swapped to a longer driver, which immediately bore results and boosted his confidence.

“It was pretty eye-opening to me, I hit Camilo Villegas's driver on Saturday at Vidanta last week. I think it was the first eye-opening thing of how much a driver-shaft combo can actually do, especially with technology now,” Dunlap said.

Nick Dunlap reaches par-5 No. 15 in two, makes birdie at Wyndham

The 22-year-old has the benefit of his winner exemptions to fall back on. His card is secure through 2027 thanks to those two victories, but that means he will be playing for his job for the first time next year. Dunlap is playing often this fall, hoping to do exactly what he did on Thursday: build confidence.

There was plenty to feel positive about in the first round. Dunlap made nine birdies to just one bogey. He missed just one fairway and two greens and rolled in more than 138 feet of putts. He gained strokes in every category. Yes, that includes off the tee. Though the putting was the star of the show. Dunlap holed two 18-foot birdie putts in his first three holes on Thursday. He converted only two of his birdies from inside eight feet. The highlight was a 40-foot bomb he holed for birdie at the fourth hole, his 13th hole of the day.

“I've got no complaints,” Dunlap said.

Neither do we.

Golf is more dynamic with Dunlap in the mix. His talent was never the question, though debilitating driver issues have threatened to thwart his career. Dunlap isn’t on the other side of it yet, but there’s light at the end of the tunnel.

“Especially out here, you're not far from contending and you're not far from missing the cut,” Dunlap said. “Everybody's really, really good out here and that's one of the great parts of being out here.”