Mateo Fernández de Oliveira, the university student who will play three majors

Mateo Fernández de Oliveira was born 23 years ago in San Isidro, Argentina. He trained and represents the University of Arkansas and 2023 will face a more than ambitious sporting challenge: he will compete in three of the four Majors thanks to the trophy won in the Latin America Amateur Championship last Sunday.

It is the first time that the winner of this competition has won a ticket to the United States Open, which this year will be held between June 15 and 18 at the Los Angeles Country Club. Until this edition, whoever was crowned appropriated a direct place for the Augusta Masters (6-9 April) and the British Open (20-23 July). The peculiarity was the fact that Mike Whan, director of the United States Golf Association (USGA), announced the new incentive the day before the opening day of the amateur championship.

Fernández de Oliveira, bronze medalist at the Buenos Aires 2018 Youth Olympic Games, won the eighth edition of the LAAC, held at the Grand Reserve Golf Club complex in Puerto Rico, with a record of 23 strokes under par, four under the Mexican Luis Carrera, and can claim to be the second Argentine to achieve the glory of this amateur tournament after Abel Gallegos triumphed in 2020.

“I am very proud. This is going to be a great year, I’m going to take advantage of all these exemptions. I am very grateful for everything,” he said before receiving the trophy. The southamerican also won the right to participate in the United States Amateur Championship and the U.S. Amateur Championship.

The next edition of the Latin America Amateur Championship, immersed in the Olympic year, will take place at the Santa María Golf Club in Panama between January 18 and 21. Regarding the five rings, Paris 2024 will represent the third consecutive game for golf since its return to the Olympic program in Rio 2016 after 112 years of absence. Both the women’s and men’s teams will have 60 competitors, who will seek to qualify through the Olympic Golf Ranking (OGR), which closes in June 2024, one month before the maximum event.