For those that don’t keep up with PGA Tour Latinoamerica, let me just tell you that it is a grind. Plenty of the game’s most talented up and coming golfers traveling the world trying to earn status on the Web.com Tour while playing toward a winning take home of just over $31,000 each week is a stressful life, but it’s what these guys do.
The winner of this past week’s VISA Open de Argentina earned a spot in The Open, too. The tournament’s champion would be decided in a playoff between Amerian Brandon Matthews and Ricardo Celia of Colombia.
After the two players traded pars on the first two playoff holes, they went to the Par 3 17th hole where Celia drained a lengthy birdie putt to put the pressure on Matthews. Just as he was making his putting stroke a fan yelled which resulted in a missed putt giving Celia the win.
In that type of pressure-packed situation, where a win could propel your career and bank account to new levels and it’s thrown off by a fan yelling during your putting stroke, it would be nearly impossible not to be infuriated.
At first, he was mad about the situation. After all, if he would have made the putt he could have gone on and punched his ticket to this year’s Open which would be his first start in a major.
“I’d been putting really well all week, and I had no doubt that I was going to make the putt,” Matthews said, via Golf Digest. “At that stage, any minute noise resonates.
“I gave it a little too much right hand, missed it and turned around and said, ‘Come on guys, seriously?!’ I was obviously frustrated about it.”
Well, it turns out the fan that yelled was a man with Down Syndrome and as soon as Matthews found out the news he immediately wanted to go meet the fan.
When he learned that the fan had Down syndrome, he immediately asked to meet him. pic.twitter.com/kBbVNqNwsh
— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) November 18, 2019
A professional golfer, who’s life and livelihood pretty much solely relies on how he performs on a golf course, to come out and say that ‘some things in life are just bigger in golf’ is special. This is one of those moments that the sports world will look back on at the end of the year and put it right up there with one of the great moments we’ve seen in quite some time.
Scott Van Pelt made it his ‘One Big Moment’ on SportsCenter and poetically discussed the story.
— Stanford Steve (@StanfordSteve82) November 19, 2019
