RIO GRANDE, PUERTO RICO | First played in January 2015, the Latin America Amateur Championship has one very simple mission: grow the game of golf in the region. That comes in part from generating opportunities for the best players in South America, Central America and the Caribbean to secure spots in major professional championships, while elevating their ambitions as players. It is also about creating golf heroes who inspire young athletes and allow them to dream of what might be possible if they commit to the sport.
Then, there are the payoffs that come for players not quite skilled enough to follow past LAAC contestants such as Joaquín Niemann to the PGA Tour. Like the life lessons playing competitive golf teaches them and how the exposure that comes from qualifying for and then playing in the Latin America Am can lead to opportunities such as college scholarships.
To be sure, the tournament’s founders set ambitious goals for the LAAC. But after eight editions, it is clear that the championship is meeting them in a variety of ways.
“The Latin America Amateur Championship has grown into a phenomenal event, and done so faster than any of us really expected,” said Mark Lawrie, director of golf in Latin America and the Caribbean for the R&A. “It has also changed the dynamics of the sport in this region and become a game changer for the winner, to say nothing of the positive effect it has on golf in his home country.”
“... for the winner of the LAAC now to receive an exemption into the U.S. Open to go with the ones they already get for the Masters and the Open Championship, that is amazing.”
Luis Alvarez
Luis Alvarez, Acushnet Company’s regional manager for Latin America and the Caribbean for the past 18 years and an astute observer of golf in this region, agrees.
“I never thought something like the LAAC would happen until it did,” Alvarez said. “And its impact has been felt throughout the region. The championship is inspiring people, it is motivating them and it is making a difference.”
One difference in Lawrie’s mind is the attitude of golfers from the smallest of the 29 countries and territories that are eligible to send contestants to the LAAC after Cayman Islander Aaron Jarvis took the 2022 championship and then performed well at last year’s Masters (posting birdies on both par-3s on the back nine Friday though he failed to make the cut) and in the Open Championship at St. Andrews, where he qualified for weekend play and finished 76th.
“By doing that, he showed golfers from a lot of those places that they, too, could win this tournament and then go on to compete at the highest levels of the game,” Lawrie said. “It has allowed kids from those lands to dream a lot bigger than they ever had before.”
Alvarez sees mid-amateur golfers as another beneficiary, and also the clubs and courses at which they play.
“Having such a premium golf event has motivated that group as well,” said the 46-year-old Colombia native who played junior golf in the region and then competed collegiately at Southeastern Louisiana University before entering the golf business. “They look at the LAAC and think, ‘this is an opportunity. I can work on my game. I can play in the championship, and who knows, maybe I can win.’ As a result, you have mid-ams renewing their club memberships, and spending more time on their courses and practice ranges as they also push fellow members to work on their games as well. Golf on the country club level is really taking off in this region, and I think that is in part due to the Latin America Amateur.”
Ask Lawrie about the biggest changes he has seen in his eight Latin America Amateurs, and he quickly mentions the quality of play.
“At the first one, at Pilar Golf Club outside Buenos Aires in Argentina, maybe 25 guys out of a field of 109 were good enough to win,” said Lawrie, who is Argentinian. “And when I walked the range here at the Grand Reserve Golf Club in Puerto Rico, I figured that half the field had a chance if they put it all together.”
Lawrie has noticed something else during those strolls. “Collectively, the swings are much more technically sound,” he said.
His boss, R&A CEO Martin Slumbers, has seen progress in another way.
“When I think about how the championship is getting better, I am not really looking at who wins or who is in the top three,” he said. “Rather, it’s how close the bottom third is to the top third. And we have definitely seen the bottom third get better.”
Alvarez also marvels at how the support systems for players have grown over the years.
“There are more coaches and trainers here than in the past,” he said. “More top-level caddies, too. And more of the top equipment makers are here now as well.”
There are other ways to measure the advances that have been made in amateur golf in this part of the world since the LAAC came to be, beginning with the success of the people who have played in the tournament. To date, 10 alumni from the event have won on the PGA Tour and its developmental tours, the Korn Ferry Tour and PGA Tour Latinoamérica, led by two-time PGA Tour winner Niemann, the 2018 LAAC champion who now is with LIV Golf, and Colombia’s Sebastián Muñoz, a one-time winner on the PGA Tour.
An even greater endorsement came the day that play in the 2023 Latin America Amateur commenced when USGA CEO Mike Whan announced that for the first time in tournament history, the winner of the LAAC would receive an exemption into the U.S. Open.
“No one ever accused the USGA of being fast to the draw, so I am sorry if we were a little late to the party,” he said. “Obviously, we think this reflects the strength of the field and the athletes that come out of that.”
Alvarez describes the U.S. Open exemption as “huge.”
“It would have been a big deal years ago, when I first started covering Latin America and the Caribbean, for someone down here to qualify for the U.S. Amateur,” he said. “But for the winner of the LAAC now to receive an exemption into the U.S. Open to go with the ones they already get for the Masters and the Open Championship, that is amazing.”
Then, there was the record-setting performance in the 2023 LAAC by winner Mateo Fernández de Oliveira of Argentina. He set the scoring record at 23-under 265 en route to a four-stroke victory.
These guys keep getting better and better.
E-MAIL JOHN
Top: Argentine players swarm countryman Mateo Fernández de Oliveira after his LAAC victory in Puerto Rico.
COURTESY LAAC