Another Argentina vs. Mexico, but among amateur golfers and with an implacable wind

RIO GRANDE, SAN JUAN.- How many thoughts flow through the heads of this large group of twenty-something fans when the prize is so great. The mind can wreak havoc on one of the four days of competition, and especially when access to three majors is at stake, as occurs in the Latin America Amateur Championship. It is a generous and cruel tournament: it shows the way to the Masters, the British Open and the US Open as if it led to golf paradise, but it is enough to get carried away by nerves to collapse on the course and see the great dream frustrated in just a couple of holes.

“The one who manages to get better involved in his mental process is the one who will win the prize,” he says. Mateo Fernández de Oliveira, the Argentine amateur who is most passionate in the LAAC, whose sports battlefield is the Grand Reserve, a par 72 where palm trees, lagoons and bunkers come together to complicate players. The Sanisidrense, who will be 23 years old on Monday, appears one stroke away from the Mexican Luis Carrera, that only has the history of a 34th place in last year’s contest in Casa de Campo, Dominican Republic.

Fernández de Oliveira has been competing for several years for the University of Arkansas, but always without a caddy, a rule imposed by university golf. Although in this contest there are no restrictions in that sense and he takes advantage of the assistance of the Argentine Thomas Mariscotti, who carries the bag and with whom he talks in all the holes. “I don’t go to him so much for an analytical look at the shots, but to reaffirm what I’m thinking about each shot. If they let me, I would always play in the company of a caddy”, admits Mateo, who is very methodical in his routines and who frequently uses the “rangefinders”, the binoculars to measure distances.

His start, with laps of 68 and 67 for a total of 135 (-9), prepares you in the best way to face the weekend and, at the same time, revalidate your candidate status: “The most important thing so far was to get in position and I must continue doing the same; I am one hundred percent happy with my performance. But the tournament will be defined from the 10th hole of the last round ”, reflects Fernández de Oliveira, who in his fifth participation in the LAAC knows that it is a long tournament, that he squeezes both mentally and physically. From this Saturday, more than ever, temperance and patience will come into force so as not to deviate from the objective of taking the trophy.

Argentina is the country with the best global performance until the second round, because the eight representatives passed the qualifying cut. Also, not only Mateo fights on top of the leaderboard. One of them is Vicente Marzilio, who started from the 10th hole and placed 4th, three strokes from the lead. He shone with a heroic final stretch, in the middle of the gusts: she recovered from the double bogey on the 4th, scored birdies on the 6th, 7th and 9th and on the par 4th of the 8th she holed out from 11 meters after a bad start, which went wide directly into the water.

“It was a roller coaster, with very crazy emotions. I was having a hard time choosing the club number because there was a crosswind blowing at 20 miles per hour; It was even difficult to choose the line from the tee of the first to the last hole, but I pulled it off”, described the Hindú Club player, who signed a second round of 70 (-2).

the cordovan Manuel Lozada he climbed to seventh place with a total of 138 (-6) and they follow him Mateo Pulcini (10°, con -4 total), Juan Martin Loureiro (14th, with a cumulative of -2), Andres Schoembaun (28th, even) and two that narrowly made the cut, just one shot apart: Segundo Oliva Pinto and Diego Prone, both with +2 and ranked 42nd. Mexico is the other power in this contest, with its six golfers classified for the outcome. But anything can happen, in two final days where the board will constantly vary names.