Published July 17, 2008 on January 17, 2020

2021 Latin America Amateur Championship to be Held at Lima Golf Club

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The seventh Latin America Amateur Championship (LAAC) will be conducted at Lima Golf Club from 14-17 January 2021 marking the first edition of the LAAC to be hosted in Peru.

Founded by the Masters Tournament, The R&A and the USGA, the LAAC was established to further develop amateur golf in South America, Central America, Mexico and the Caribbean. The event annually moves to top courses throughout Latin America and showcases the sport’s rising talent in the region, including 2019 LAAC champion Alvaro Ortiz of Mexico, who was the Low Amateur Runner-Up at the Masters last year, and 2018 LAAC champion Joaquin Niemann of Chile, who competed on the 2019 Presidents Cup International team and became the first Chilean to win a PGA TOUR event with his victory at A Military Tribute at The Greenbrier last September.

This week’s champion will receive an invitation to the 2020 Masters Tournament at Augusta National Golf Club and, for the first time in this history of the championship, will earn an exemption into The 149th Open at Royal St George’s. The winner also receives full exemptions into The Amateur Championship, US Amateur Championship and any other USGA amateur championship for which he is eligible and is exempt into the final stages of qualifying for the 120th US Open Championship at Winged Foot. Runner(s)-up will be exempt into the final stages of qualifying for The 149th Open and the 120th US Open Championship.

“Lima Golf Club looks forward to hosting the Latin America Amateur Championship and the region’s top amateur golfers next year,” said Diego de Osma, President of Lima Golf Club. “In 2021, Peru will observe the bicentennial of the nation’s independence, and we believe that the staging of this championship at our club is a tremendous celebration of both the city of Lima and the game of golf in Peru. We are excited for the talented amateurs from across the Latin America region to display their skills on our historic course.”

Opened in 1924, Lima Golf Club sits at the centre of the San Isidro neighbourhood in the country’s capital city. The course is noted as one of the oldest in the Pacific River Basin and acknowledged as a premiere course in Latin America. The layout, which also hosted all golf competition at the 2019 Pan American Games, features narrow fairways winding between tipa trees, bunkers and lakes, all with Lima’s skyline on display in the distance.

In 2015, Matias Dominguez, of Chile, won the inaugural championship by one stroke at Pilar Golf in Argentina. Paul Chaplet of Costa Rica won the second edition in 2016 at Casa de Campo’s Teeth of the Dog course in the Dominican Republic. Toto Gana triumphed in 2017 at Club de Golf de Panama, marking the first time the LAAC was decided in a playoff and the championship’s second winner from Chile. The next year Joaquin Niemann, then the world’s number one ranked amateur, continued Chile’s dominance at the LAAC when he won in his hometown of Santiago at Prince of Wales Country Club. In 2019, Alvaro Ortiz of Mexico achieved his dream in the amateur’s fifth and final appearance at the LAAC with a two-stroke victory in Casa De Campo, Dominican Republic.

This year’s LAAC at Mayakoba’s El Camaleón features 108 players from 28 countries throughout Latin America. Television coverage includes two hours of live broadcast across four continents on all four days of play. Spectators are admitted free at Mayakoba. For more information about the LAAC, including live scoring, spectator information, latest news and a roster of players competing, please visit LAACgolf.com.