Ben Crenshaw and Lee Trevino are among the legends who have won the Mexico Open since its debut in 1944. But this is the first year Mexico’s most prestigious golf tournaments are part of the PGA Tour schedule.
Equally important for the growth of golf, there are a record 10 Mexicans participating this week in the Mexico Open at Vidanta. Carlos Ortiz and Abraham Ancer, the two most recent Mexican winners on the PGA Tour, lead the group of Mexicans in the field.
Ortiz, the 2020 Houston Open champion, is joined by his younger brother Álvaro. The Mexico Open was added as the second Mexican tournament on the PGA Tour this season.
“It’s huge having two PGA TOUR events in our country,” Ancer said. “I think it’s really important. It creates more awareness for the whole country to watch a little bit of golf played in our country, which is not very common, but slowly it’s getting a lot more popular.
“And it also creates opportunities for more Mexicans to play an event in our country and to experience what playing at this level is. And the lessons you learn in an event like this are priceless,” he added.
Thanks to American universities, this may be the greatest era for Mexican golfers on the PGA Tour. Mexico was on a forty-two-year PGA Tour title drought until Guadalajara, Jalisco, native Carlos Ortiz won the Houston Open in November 2020.
Less than a year later, Abraham Ancer won the FedEx St. Jude Invitational to become only the fourth Mexican to win a PGA Tour Event. Ancer was actually born in the United States, but was raised in the early part of his life in Reynosa, Mexico. Therefore, Abraham, who starred at the University of Oklahoma, is deemed a Mexican player by the PGA.
Carlos Ortiz, a former University of North Texas star, is 68th in the FedEx Cup standings. Abraham Ancer is 77th.
Now, the Ortiz brothers are pleased to be playing the PGA Tour near their home state of Jalisco.
The Vidanta Vallarta course is relatively new. Greg Norman designed the course in 2015 on the Nayarit Riviera on the outskirts of Puerto Vallarta, Jalisco. It is a par 71 on 7,456 yards along the Ameca River with a picturesque setting with the Sierra Madres on the horizon.
Source: Our Esquina