This Thursday, Mito Pereira will officially start the 2021-22 season of the PGA Tour, which he qualified early after winning three tournaments on the Korn Ferry Tour. After playing the last tournaments of last season, there was the feeling that Chilean had been on the circuit his whole life. With fifth place at Barbasol he showed that he is ready.
The Pirque native will participate in the Fortinet Championship, in Napa Valley, California. And before his debut, he revealed his feelings, as a manifest, on the official site of the PGA Tour, and that El Deportivo anticipates.
“Before the pandemic started in 2020, I had already earned enough points to secure my PGA Tour card in a normal Korn Ferry Tour season, but the inevitable happened and we started over. Knowing that I had returned to the starting point affected me, especially in my game. That’s when the power of a good support system kicked in, ”he confessed.
“A good friend sat me down and gave me a reality check that we all need from time to time. He said that I was going to have to play well my whole life and that I should take this ‘setback’ as a new challenge. I had to win my way back again and give everything to keep going. As simple as it sounds, that managed to ignite something inside me and after two more victories, here I am, on my way to start my first full season on the PGA Tour, ”he added.
On his first sensations in the maximum circuit, the golfer remembered how he lived them. “Step on the tee Starting my first PGA Tour event brought me the same nerves of something new that I felt at my first golf tournament. I had really missed them, “he said. And he added: “Playing on the PGA Tour has been my dream since I was a child, being here, grateful as I am, I want more. I want to win; I want to stay competitive. I want to be among the best. And I think it’s safe to say that it’s a sentiment that we all share here. As a Tour player, our goal is to enjoy the moment while trying hard enough to improve our game and win. Competitiveness drives us round after round, not just against each other, but against ourselves ”.
“Even with the year I had – three victories on the Korn Ferry Tour, two top 10s on the PGA Tour – representing Chile at the Olympics became the icing on the cake of one of the best years of my career so far. Tokyo was a key moment where you can see things from another perspective without a doubt “, he reflected on another of the passages of his text.
He also recalled his remarkable time in Tokyo and compared it to the feats of tennis. “When I was a boy, two Chilean athletes, tennis players Fernando González and Nicolás Massú, achieved something incredible for Chile. They managed to unite the country during the 2004 Athens Olympics, winning gold in both doubles and singles. Being at the Olympic Games this year with Joaco (Niemann), we felt that perhaps we could do something like this for Chile, especially in the times we are living in, where we all have reason to smile. Seeing the response we got on social media and being able to bring joy to Chileans felt different from what we normally do, ”he said.
Among Mito’s reflections, there are also his goals: “One of my objectives for this season is obvious: I want to win. But above that, I want to help the game grow both in Chile and in Latin America. I learned a lot every step of the way that brought me here, starting with the PGA Tour Latin America, all the way to the Korn Ferry Tour and now finally the PGA Tour, the amount of Latin talent that goes through all of them is insane. There was a boom of Latino talent in recent years on the Tour and it feels great to be a part of this change. Like us, I’m sure there will be more players coming here from now on. And that’s because of everything Joaco, Abraham Ancer, Carlos Ortiz, Sebastián Muñoz and many others have done. They are living proof that Latino players can succeed on the Tour and win. “
Finally, he says goodbye with a prediction: “Now there are two Chilean players on the Tour, but I know that in a few years there will be many more. I am sure that Chile and the rest of Latin America are brimming with talent. As long as we can all help from where we belong, great things can come of it. Now I have the privilege of calling myself a player on the PGA Tour. It was worth the effort. The secret? Just three words: never give up ”.
