Who is Mateo Fernández de Oliveira, the only Argentine golfer to play in the Augusta Masters

The 25th competition appearance of Tiger Woodslooking for Rory McIlroy of the only major that is missing in his collection and the attempt of number one in the world, Scottie Schefflerrepeating last year’s success are some of the attractions of the Augustan Masters golf course which started this Thursday and will finish on Sunday. among many stars an Argentinian makes his debut in the tournament: Mateo Fernández de Oliveira.

At 23 the Sanisidrense he is one of seven amateur players who are participating in the competition which is giving away 15 million dollars (the others are the Americans Ben Carr, Sam Bennett AND Gordon SargentNorthern Irish Matthew McLeanethe Australian harrison crow and the South African Aldrich Potgeiter) and also He is the fourth Argentine amateur who gives the present to Augusta (before they did Juan Bautista Segura in 1951, Jorge Ledesma in 1963 and Abel Gallego in 2020).

Despite his youth, Fernández de Oliveira has come a long way to land this huge opportunity at Augusta National Golf Club. She started when she was nine and started playing in San Isidro Nautical Club. Before reaching most of these, he was Argentine Under-15 and Under-18 champion, twice (in 2014 and 2015) won the South American Youth Championship and won the bronze medal at the South American Youth Games in Santiago de Chile. 2017 and the team gold medal with Ela Anacona, who is currently his girlfriend.

In 2018 he was South American youth champion and also hung the bronze medal in the team competition (also together with Ela Anacona) of Youth Olympic Games occurred in Buenos Aires. Already in 2022 he was a representative of the Argentine team who intervened in the Eisenhower Trophy in Paris (France) and the international team that won the Arnold Palmer cup in Geneva (Switzerland).

He did all this as a fan, a condition he still maintains, given that he combines sports practice with study: in University of Arkansaswhich he also represents as a golfer, is completing his communications degree (he will graduate mid-year). He currently occupies the 25th position in the world amateur rankings.

And how did the Buenos Aires native get the golden ticket to the Masters? He won it on January 15, just one day before his 23rd birthday, when in Río Grande, Puerto Rico, he won the Latin American Amateur Championship (LAAC), a competition whose first edition, in 2015, he attended as a volunteer at the Pilar Golf Club.

On Puerto Rican soil he did an extraordinary job: he beat his Mexican shooting guard, Luis Carrera, by four shots and his 265 shots (23 under par) allowed him to breaks the 72-hole championship record that Chilean Joaquín Niemann set in 2018 (273). Thus he became the second Argentine to win this trophy (Abel Gallegos had won it in 2020). “I’m still very surprised. I think my life has changed.”recognized that day.

The consecration in the LAAC not only gave him access to the Augusta Masters, but will also allow him to participate in two other majors: the US Openwhich will take place June 15-18 at the Los Angeles Country Club, and the British openwhich will take place from 20 to 23 July at the Royal Liverpool Hoylake (where Robert DeVincenzo won the title in 1967). After that, and with his college career complete, he’ll turn pro.

For now, the first summit of this gigantic triangle is in Augusta, where he shares the hours with his parents, brother, partner, sister-in-law and four friends who have come from Buenos Aires. “I think there’s not much to lose and much to gain, so the mentality will be like this: try to have fun and give the best of me”, counted on the eve of the debut. On Thursday he completed a round shared with American Bubba Watson and Irishman Seamus Power with 76 strokes (4 over par).