In a sensational performance over the four days of the tournament, the Colombian Nicholas Echavarria took victory in the Puerto Rican Open, at the Grand Reserve Golf Club. It is the most important triumph of his career.
Echavarría, who started with 67 strokes on the first day, repeated it in the second round, to then shoot a 65 in the third and take the tournament lead. Thus, he came out with two shots ahead of the American Carson Young.
(Also read: Triumph for Nicolás Echavarría at the Puerto Rico Open)
The Antioquian started strongly, showing Young that he had his teeth clenched: two entry birdies to increase the advantage to 4 shots. He then made a bogey error at 6, but cleaned up for a birdie at 7. He bogeyed again at 8 to finish the first 9 holes with 35.
Nicolás Echavarría celebrates his victory at the Puerto Rico Open.
Carmen Mandate. Getty Images/AFP
Nico again took a three shot lead at the 11th, with an excellent birdie, and then he made two more at the 14th and 15th to reach the final hole two shots ahead. There he had a putt 3 meters to break the tournament record. He called it at -21.
The meaning of Echavarría’s triumph
This tournament is alternate to the PGA Tour. And we say alternate because it is a contest that is played simultaneously with another scheduled by the circuit. This week was the Arnold Palmer Invitational, which was played in Orlando.
Thus, the Tour offers a great opportunity to very important players who have no place in the other tournament. It has the full PGA Tour stamp on it, so it is earned when victory is achieved.
In this case, Echavarría achieved two years of exemption, his automatic entry this week to the ‘big fifth’, The Players, with a bag of 25 million dollars, and will also travel to the second major of the year, the PGA Championship. In addition to this, the Colombian won 104 places in the FedEx Cup, going from box 144 to 40, and brought to his coffers 684,000 dollars, more than 3,000 million Colombian pesos.
In addition, he is the first Colombian to win a tournament on the PGA Tour as a rookie. Camilo Villegas and Juan Sebastian Munoz They did not do it in their first year of stay in the big tent of world golf. The first had to wait until his third season and the second even lost his card in his first year and then got it back.
Echavarría has struggled since he was a child to be a figure in golf. He was instrumental in the team at the University of Arkansas and in 2017 he turned professional. He began playing in the PGA Latinoamérica and in 2018 he achieved two victories on that circuit. With this he won his box to be in 2019 on the Korn Ferry Tour. Last year he got the card this way.
Things were not going well. He had only made two cuts in 10 tournaments, a very important one: he finished 12 at the Sony Open in Hawaii. He had finished 23rd in the Bermuda Championship before him.
He had only accumulated $195,458, which put him in position 144, which made him reel: only the first 125 keep the card. Hence the importance of this title: now he only has to think about accommodating his dates to play the best tournaments of the season. He enters the elite tournaments of the PGA Tour, decreed a few days ago for the best 80, which will have purses of 20 million dollars.
Getting to the ‘green’
German Street
For the time
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