Torque GC team<\/a> were surprised by his decision.<\/p>\n\u201cIt was a shock for anyone who played golf and has seen how talented he is,\u201d Carlos Ortiz tells TG. \u201cMito was concentrating on keeping his card and trying to figure out his life \u2013 so behind the scenes he was just preparing for whatever outcome was going to happen.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt the end of the day, we all want him to be happy, and that\u2019s the path he chose. As his friend, we support him and really hope he finds the happiness he\u2019s looking for.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ortiz\u2019s Mexican countryman Abraham Ancer has been traded from the Fireballs GC team to fill the void left on Torque GC.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had no idea that he was going to retire from golf,\u201d Ancer admits. \u201cMaybe take a couple of months off or something like that. I talked to him the day he announced it and it seemed that he was very happy.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s done it before, I guess. He didn\u2019t play golf for a couple of years, I guess when he was 15 or 17 years old. And then he came back and played amazing golf.\u201d<\/p>\n
Indeed, this isn\u2019t the first time that Pereira has been disillusioned with this unforgiving sport. In his teenage years, Pereira walked away from the game completely to live a \u201cnormal life\u201d with his friends. He eventually returned before his 18th birthday and won on the Chilean Professional Tour before moving to the US and accelerating his journey to the PGA Tour by playing college golf at Texas Tech.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel like there\u2019s a lot more to life than just golf,\u201d Ancer continues. \u201cAnd for some people, golf might be it. But for Mito, it might be something else, which is completely fine. I wish him the best. He\u2019s a great friend, a great person, [and] a great golfer.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"Mito](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/mito-perreira-retirement.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
Pereira mustered just two top-20 finishes in his last two seasons with LIV and finished 51st in the 2025 individual standings, comfortably inside the league\u2019s Drop Zone. Had he continued, Pereira could have played a season of the Asian Tour\u2019s International Series events in a bid to earn his LIV status back. <\/p>\n
\u201cThere was a little suspicion within ourselves and the teams that he wasn\u2019t completely happy with golf,\u201d Sebastian Munoz, who fired a round of 59 in Indianapolis in Torque GC colors last season, explains.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was still staying positive because he wanted to keep his card and still be here. But he was just letting fate decide what he was going to do next. He tried his best. I feel like he was playing really good golf towards the end. It was just a little too late. Then he had an injury so he couldn\u2019t really play [LIV] Promotions or anything like that. So he just let fate decide on him.\u201d<\/p>\n
Munoz sympathises with Pereira\u2019s decision but just wishes it hadn\u2019t come so soon.<\/p>\n
\u201cGolf is a really tough sport,\u201d the Colombian says. \u201cIt\u2019s a very demanding sport in hours, determination, mental will, mental strength. You\u2019ve got to have all of that because it\u2019s a sport where in this case, 50-something guys lose every week and only one wins. I was surprised because I do feel like he\u2019s really talented and he\u2019s quite young. I wasn\u2019t on board with him retiring this young.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut at the same time, he\u2019s an adult and it\u2019s his life and it\u2019s his time here on Earth. He wants to spend it with his family in Chile and not really move a lot and not really keep travelling. He\u2019s been travelling ever since he was 15 or earlier. So he wanted a break and he wanted to change the scenery. So I support him because I love the guy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Munoz had hoped Pereira turned a corner last year after encouraging him to change coach in a bid to fix his driver woes, but that proved to be a false dawn. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe only conversation I had with him was halfway through the season, things weren\u2019t really working out with his old coach,\u201d he explains. \u201cI thought that he was going to do better with a new coach, Jose, the guy I work with as well. And we did find success. He did find a better way to hit the ball. He wasn\u2019t as scared mentally with the driver after he switched. And I think it did help. <\/p>\n
\u201cBut as I told you before, it was maybe a little too late.\u00a0It wasn\u2019t enough.\u201d<\/p>\n
So Pereira can now enjoy some time at home he has longed for, away from the spotlight. He steps away as a three-time winner on the Korn Ferry Tour and he has also competed in all of the game\u2019s biggest events. He then cashed in on LIV\u2019s arrival by banking over $17 million in prize money<\/a> across three fairly mediocre seasons on the league. It should be noted that could well have expedited his decision, too. <\/p>\nBy most metrics, Pereira\u2019s relatively short golf career has been an overwhelming success.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe time has come to pause,\u201d his statement read. \u201cChile is my place in the world, and my family is my reason for being. Golf taught me resilience, how to navigate both good and difficult moments, and how to make discipline and goals a way of life. I believe I am well prepared for what lies ahead.\u201d<\/p>\n
What exactly that will be remains to be seen. It would perhaps be foolish to rule Pereira out from making a second comeback to the game, especially given he has so much time on his side.<\/p>\n
But as Joaquin Niemann, the Torque GC skipper, surmised: \u201cHe\u2019s the owner of his own destiny. He decided not to keep playing. He has different priorities in his life and I\u2019m pretty happy for him.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s always going to be part of the team no matter what.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When Mito Pereira decided to hang up his clubs following relegation from LIV Golf, even his own teammates…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":450218,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[71],"tags":[427,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-450217","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-golf","8":"tag-golf","9":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/450217","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=450217"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/450217\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/450218"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=450217"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=450217"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=450217"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}