Masters carrot dangling at LAAC - ESPN
BUENOS AIRES -- The bag is filled with clubs specially made, stamped with "Florida Gators" on the side and an alligator head cover atop his driver. Alejandro Tosti's allegiance now is to the University of Florida, but he has returned home this week to Argentina, even if he is miles upon miles removed from his start in the game.
Playing in the inaugural Latin America Amateur Championship with all of its top-notch amenities is a long way from the rudimentary clubs Tosti forged out of barbecue utensils and the round piece of deodorant that served as a golf ball.
Tosti was 5 years old when he tuned into the 2002 Masters and decided he wanted to play golf. Now he's in a position to play at Augusta National if he was to win this tournament? For just about everyone competing this week, it is beyond his dreams.
"It is really good for our region," Tosti said of the tournament that begins Thursday at Pilar Golf Club just outside of the city. "We've never had a tournament like this. You have to travel to Europe or the USA for something like this, so it is really good for us.
"And to play for a spot in the Masters is great. It's really hard to believe. That is a big prize for winning a tournament."
Yes it is, and yet that shrewd move by the Masters and specifically Augusta National chairman Billy Payne, was meant to bring attention to the tournament and create an avenue for aspiring golfers in parts of the world where golf is not nearly as prominent as it is in places like the United States, Australia, Europe and South Africa.
The event follows the successful five-year run of the Asia-Pacific Amateur Championship, which began in 2009 with similar goals: promote the game, give players an opportunity to compete in a well-run tournament and dangle that Masters carrot.
The Asia-Pacific event twice produced Japan's Hideki Matsuyama as a winner. In both of his Masters appearances as an amateur, he made the cut. Last year, he won the Memorial Tournament on the PGA Tour and is ranked 15th in the world. He just contended in recent days at the Hyundai Tournament of Champions.
China's Tianlang Guan made worldwide headlines two years ago after winning the Asia-Pacific Amateur and then becoming the youngest player in Masters history at 14, where he also made the cut. Not only does the winner here receive a Masters invite, but he gets a full exemption into the U.S. Amateur and any other United States Golf Association amateur event for which he is eligible.
Along with the runner-up in the event, he also gets an exemption into final stage qualifying for the U.S. Open and the Final Qualifying Series held in the United Kingdom for the Open Championship later this year.
"We believe this event will be motivating to current and future generations of golfers and, one day, create heroes that will inspire others to give the game a try," Payne said.
The field consists of 109 players from South and Central America, the Caribbean and Mexico. The World Amateur Golf Rankings were used to fill the field, but every country in the region is represented by at least two players, including places such as the Cayman Islands, Turks and Caicos, and Barbados. And all of it is funded through the efforts of the Masters, the R&A and the USGA (and their corporate sponsors), which is taking part in this grow-the-game initiative for the first time.
"For us, especially those of us in the Caribbean, this is an enormous opportunity," said Julian Jordan, 45, who is from Barbados -- a country that boasts just five golf courses. "It is enormous to help progress our golf in the region.
"The scope, the scale, the class of fields in tournaments we've been involved in in Barbados has largely been restricted to regional events. What this does is expands our scope with the golden prize of having a shot to make everyone's dream of playing in the Masters.
"And then there are the qualifying rounds for the other majors. For the younger generation of players, the junior golfers, this now becomes the bigger target that young top golfers can gun for."
Jordan has the perspective that most in the field are not old enough to possess. He has degrees from Penn's Wharton School of Business and Harvard's Graduate School of Business. After working for years in the U.S., he returned to Barbados eight years ago and is now the CEO of Neptune Mobile. He won the Barbados Open in 1998 and 2014.
He is one of seven players in the field who are 45 or older, but most are college-age players and at least 60 have some sort of ties to U.S. college golf.
"At first I didn't think this would be possible," said Venezuela's Jorge Garcia, who will attend the University of Florida next fall. "I thought it was just rumors. Then people started talking about this event and bringing it to Latin America. You're giving a lot of guys a great chance. We have a lot of countries who fight for every sport they play. This is an opportunity we've all been waiting for.
"When you start playing golf where I'm from, you see the Masters once a year and you're like, 'Wow, this is what I want to do for the rest of my life.' All of the majors are big and important, but the Masters is the icon of golf. This is a great opportunity, and when I heard we would have the chance to play in it, it was incredible."
Similar views were expressed up and down the driving range as players prepared for a tournament that has a look and feel of a professional event that is clearly beyond what most have experienced to date.
There are television towers, for one thing.
"We don't see those on a golf course, well never," Garcia joked.
The event is being televised by ESPN and on WatchESPN. The daily lunch spread is pretty nice, too. So is the golf course and its ornate clubhouse with pristine conditions.
"It's by far the nicest tournament any of us would have played in," Jordan said.
An example of how big a deal this is: Many of the players in the field had already begun classes at their U.S. colleges. As part of their participation, the tournament founders provided airfare and lodging, as well as meals, for the week -- as allowed by amateur status guidelines.
That is not exactly what Santiago Gomez envisioned when he started to play golf in Colombia.
A junior at Nova Southeastern University in Florida, Gomez had just one golf course in his home town of Armenia, Colombia.
"My mom used to play tennis," he said. "She got me into tennis lessons when I was 4 years old. When I was walking to the tennis courts you had to walk past the 10th tee of the golf course. I would stand there on the tee and watch people hit the ball. I told my mom I wanted to play golf. She took me to lessons, I loved it, and I've been playing golf ever since."
The stories, of course, are endless: players who came from meager means trying to make their way in a sport that offered so few incentives.
"This is a huge opportunity," said Brazil's Andre Tourinho, a 2012 graduate of the University of Tulsa. "Very few people have this opportunity. Of course there's nothing like it. To win a tournament, to be able to play in the Masters, there is nothing like this."
For Tosti, it has all been a bit overwhelming. Just 18, he began his first semester at the University of Florida last week, then returned home to play in this tournament.
The No. 1-ranked amateur in Argentina contended in the Argentine Open a few years ago and had everyone wondering when he would turn pro. Most of the top professionals here -- former Masters champion Angel Cabrera and PGA Tour winner Andres Romero to name two -- never had any formal schooling beyond high school. They became professionals as soon as possible, sometimes out of necessity.
"I always had it in mind to go to the States and go to university there," Tosti said.
Tosti is living that dream, with another about to unfold this week.
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