Mito Pereira trying to be the first Chilean golfer to win a major

Mito Pereira (YouTube)

Mito Pereira of Santiago, Chile is trying to be the first golfer to win a major. On Saturday in the third round, Pereira moved into the lead after trailing Will Zalatoris of the United States by one stroke to begin the day.

After 54 holes, Pereira has a three stroke lead on Zalatoris and England’s Matt Fitzpatrick. On Saturday, Pereira literally had a topsy-turvy round. He was great at the start, horrible in the middle, and great at the finish. Pereira birdied the second, fifth, 13th, 14th, and 18th holes. He also bogeyed the eighth, ninth, 10th and 12th holes.

However Pereira did get a little lucky in his round, because Zalatoris also struggled, as he had a score of three-over-par 73. The promising American from San Francisco, has been in the hunt in several tournaments in his career. However, on Saturday, he struggled mightily on the front nine with bogeys on the first, fourth, sixth and seventh holes.

Many expected a Chilean to be in contention, just not Pereira, the 100th ranked player in the world. Joaquin Niemann of  Santiago, Chile was -1 after the third round. Niemann, the two-time PGA Tour champion, is currently 16th in the world.

It will now be interesting to see where Pereira will be ranked if he is victorious on Sunday. My estimated guess is somewhere between 40th and 50th in the world. Pereira’s most significant achievement prior to the 2022 PGA Championship, was  being in a seven-way playoff for the bronze medal at the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo in 2021.

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