Chilean golf received great news during these days: Gabriel Morgan Birke made the decision to try his luck as a professional player. A leap that took place several years later with great results at the amateur level and where he managed to represent Chile in various tournaments.
Morgan begins this new chapter after a 2022 where he played four tournaments (two of them in the Pro category), including the Latin America Amateur Championship, one of the most important events on the continent and that even gives the winner the chance to play two of the majors: The Augusta Masters and the British Open. There the Chilean managed to finish in 15th place, remaining as the second best golfer in the country in the contest. He was only surpassed by Benjamín Saiz-Wenz, who finished seventh in the event held in the Dominican Republic.
That, added to a 2021 where he achieved very good results, including a victory in the Santo Domingo Rocks Open where he finished with a card of 12 under par, gave him the conviction that it was time to take the most important step of his career. short run. “In that year I was not able to play many tournaments, but I still got very good scores. That’s when I said this is my moment. I’m playing well, it’s time to talk to my team. I had the support of my coach and my family and I quit my job to start my path as a professional”, the 24-year-old golfer told Sporting.
A decision that was brought forward, since at one point he was going to wait to play the World Cup in September. A turn in its programming which is due to the great objective it has for this season.
“In the short term I want to compete in the Korn Ferry Tour qualifying school that starts in September. If I played the World Cup in France I was going to have to do it as an amateur and I wasn’t going to get to the first stage with experience. So I assumed that I had to be a professional from before to arrive at that stage without so much pressure, arrive with more experience as a professional.”, comments.
The qualifying school can get you straight into the Korn Ferry Tour, the second-highest tour in North American golf. To get to that stage well, Morgan already has a clear schedule. “My preparation will be to go play some mini tours that exist in the United States called All Pro Tour and different minor events that are in Florida. That will allow me to be playing on courts similar to the ones I will have in September.”, he concluded.
The golfer, like almost the entire national litter, trains at the EM Academy of renowned coach Eduardo Miquel, who also directs Mito Pereira and Joaquín Niemann. In fact, from the United States, the strategist took a few minutes to talk with Third about this news. “He has had a very good career as an amateur, he has represented Chile, he has been number one in the country for a long time and he is also very good at studies. He has my full support, he is a tremendous player”, he commented.
But the strategist also went further and said what Morgan’s big challenge will be at the moment. “Not everyone reacts the same when choosing a sport as a profession, but I think you have all the tools to play good golf. He has the technique, the attitude, the head. Hopefully Gabriel can replicate the good race he had as an amateur. He deserves this step and hopefully he can face it in a good way”, he concluded.
Gabriel jumps to professionalism after an amateur career where reached 38th place in the world and in which he played various Pro tournaments in the country. Some of them were the Prince of Wales Country Club Open, the Las Araucarias Open, the Scotia Wealth Management Chile Open, the Polo Club Open, the Brisas de Santo Domingo Open and the Cachagua Open, where he finished fifth. Besides won the Los Lirios Match Play.
