{"id":418968,"date":"2026-01-19T08:42:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-19T08:42:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/418968\/"},"modified":"2026-01-19T08:42:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-19T08:42:10","slug":"mateo-pulcini-wins-latin-america-amateur-championship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/418968\/","title":{"rendered":"Mateo Pulcini Wins Latin America Amateur Championship"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mateo Pulcini of Argentina came through a playoff against Venezuela\u2019s Virgilio Paz Valdes to win the 11th instalment of the Latin America Amateur Championship<\/a> at Lima Golf Club in Peru.<\/p>\n

With the win, the 25-year-old has earned an invitation to compete in the 2026 Masters Tournament and exemptions into The 154th Open Championship at Royal Birkdale<\/a> and 126th US Open Championship at Shinnecock Hills.<\/p>\n

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He also receives exemptions into The Amateur Championship and the US Amateur Championship.<\/p>\n

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As runner-up Paz Valdes, a University of Missouri senior, will be exempt into the final stages of qualifying for The Open Championship and US Open Championship.<\/p>\n

Both Pulcini and Paz Valdes fired closing rounds of 68 to finish on five-under-par, two clear of Tomas Restrepo of Colombia and Paraguay\u2019s Erich Fortlage.<\/p>\n

Overnight leader Segundo Oliva Pinto of Argentina stumbled to a closing 73 and finished fifth.<\/p>\n

In the playoff Pulcini secured his win on the second extra hole, the difficult par-4 18th. Paz Valdes went through the green and was unable to get up-and-down. The Argentinian had two putts for the win and he took them.<\/p>\n

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Coming into the event at 174th on the World Amateur Golf Ranking, Pulcini is the oldest champion in the 11-year history of the Latin America Amateur and the third from Argentina after 2020 winner Abel Gallegos and 2023 winner Mateo Fern\u00e1ndez de Oliveira.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnbelievable; having this opportunity to play this tournament and then of course to win it, it’s something that I just imagine before coming here,\u201d said Pulcini, who played his final collegiate season at the University of Arkansas. \u201cSo, that was my thought every night before sleep and yesterday I was thinking I was 3 up on 18, different than I imagined but the same result.\u201d<\/p>\n

The best round of the day came from Brazil\u2019s Herik Machado. He carded a 65 to finish the week at one-under-par.<\/p>\n

Founded by The R&A, The Masters and The USGA, the LAAC was inaugurated with a view to developing the game of golf in Central and South America and the Caribbean.<\/p>\n

Joaquin Niemann<\/a> of Chile who won the LAAC in 2018 on home soil in Santiago, is perhaps the best-known graduate.<\/p>\n

Others to have played in the event include Nico Echavarria, Sebastian Munoz, Mito Pereira, Alejandro Tosti and Alvaro Ortiz.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mateo Pulcini of Argentina came through a playoff against Venezuela\u2019s Virgilio Paz Valdes to win the 11th instalment…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":418969,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[443],"tags":[49,48,622,82],"class_list":["post-418968","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-golf","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418968","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=418968"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418968\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/418969"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=418968"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=418968"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=418968"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}