Mission Accomplished, but...

After my first week in Argentina, I had two more weeks on the road traveling for events on PGA Tour Latin America. The second week was in Buenos Aires, Argentina for the Roberto de Vicenzo Memorial 100 Years and the third week was in Porto Feliz, Brazil for the JHSF Aberto do Brasil.

For the second event I needed to play in the Monday Qualifier in order to play my way into the event, after successfully shooting -3, 68 in the Qualifier I was ready to play in my first event on PGA Tour Latino America. The course was fun to play and required precision with wedges in order to score. After a good first round of -1, 70 I was in good shape to make the cut with another great round. The following day I was -3 thru 10 holes and -4 for the event, which put me in the top 15. However, some unfortunate shots and poorly timed bad play resulted in a second round +3, 74 and me missing the cut by 3 shots. This was a real gut punch given the opportunity I gave myself but there was no time to feel sorry for myself or how I played as I had to get refocused and travel to Brazil for the next event.

After arriving in São Paulo, Brazil for the third week and taking a 2-hour drive to the location of the golf course (Porto Feliz), I got settled in and prepared myself to play my way into the third and final event of the trip again via Monday Qualifying. After successfully shooting -1, 70 in the Qualifier I had my last opportunity, so I had to make it count. On the first day of the tournament I came out and played great golf, I shot -4, 67 bogey free and was in the top 20. It was an awesome way to start the week and put me in great position to make the cut and play the weekend. The second day I had the first tee time of the day and got off to a horrible start. I was +5 thru my first 6 holes with a triple bogey and outside the cut line by 3 shots. I knew that I had to do something great in order to make the cut or else my season on the Tour would be over. I proceeded to play my next 12 holes in -3 par, making a clutch 5-foot birdie putt on my last hole to shoot +2, 73 and make the cut on the number. Now we play the weekend! The third round I couldn't really get much going, but was able to make a couple of putts and shoot -2, 69 which moved me up the leaderboard into the top 40. With one round to go, I knew I needed a low one in order to crack the top 10 and have a great finish to my trip. I came out in the final round and got off to a hot start, making a birdie and an eagle in my first two holes of the day and I finished my front nine shooting -5, 31 putting me in the top 15 of the event. I needed just a solid back nine with a couple birdies to have a Top 10 finish. Unfortunately, this did not happen. I made a couple big mistakes on my 3rd hole of the back nine and made a 9, ouch. Filtering a couple more birdies and bogeys I finished the day shooting even par 71 with 7 birdies, 1 eagle, 5 bogeys, 4 pars, and a quadruple bogey - tied for 35th place. Definitely not the way I wanted the week to end. But looking at the positives, I led the field in under par scores, making birdie or eagle on 30% of the holes I played. Made plenty of birdies to win, just made to many bogeys.

BUT, all in all I did what I needed to do on this trip. I went down with conditional status and three goals in mind that I hoped to achieve. First goal was to Monday qualify for multiple events (I was able to qualify for 2/3, missing at the first one due to food poisoning the night prior), my second goal was to make the cut at the events I Monday qualified for (I was able to do that for 1 of the 2 events), and the third goal was to play well enough in the 4 day tournament after making the cut to qualify for the Tour's reshuffle, improve my conditional status to full status, and secure guaranteed starts in the second half of the season (I did this). No more Monday’s this season!

My new goals for the second half of the PGA Tour Latin American season are to play well enough in the next 5 events to qualify for the Tour Championship which means I will keep my card for next season (top 60 on the money list). Another goal is to reduce the number of Korn Ferry Q-School stages I would need to play well in during this coming Fall to achieve Korn Ferry status for next year. I can achieve this by finishing top 25 on money list which would exempt me into Second Stage of Q-School. Lastly, I want to win! After this last week in Brazil, I know I have the game to compete on this Tour and I am making plenty of birdies to give myself opportunities to win.

Along with these 5 starts comes more expenses that will need to be paid for in order for me to stay on the upward track that I am on and get to the next level as fast as I can. My team is growing as I am having success in fundraising and finding investors, however there is always opportunity for there to be more. Please reach out if you are interested in being an investor in my golf career!

Check out my Schedule page on my website to see the locations and events I will be playing for the rest of the PGA Tour Latin America season! Check out my Career Highlights page on my website for all of my stats and results so far this season in the two events I have played on PGA Tour Latin America. And also check out my Instagram @evanwbrowngolf for great pictures that were taken from my three weeks on the road in South America!