Club Campestre Guaymaral
The Pacific Colombia Tour Championship presented by Helm, to be co-sanctioned by the Tour de las Americas and the Canadian Tour starting tomorrow at Bogota’s Club Campestre Guaymaral, wraps up a fantastic month in the history of Colombian professional golf events.
This exciting venture has featured the Pacific Rubiales Bogota Open, the III Copa Antioquia and the two events starting the Pacific Colombia Tour presented by Helm last week in Barranquilla and this week in Bogota.
These tournaments have involved the Nationwide Tour, the European Challenge Tour, the Canadian Tour and the Tour de las Americas, paying over a million dollars in prize money and confirming Colombia as a leading tournament host and organizer in South America.
“These events are showing the world a different country, a country captivating all these Tours and their players, as well as the audiences watching on The Golf Channel. They have learned through these events that Colombia is a place you can visit and have a wonderful time,” said Sport Link Director Germán Calle, the man behind this explosion of international golf in this nation.
Over the last few weeks it has been quite obvious that this is a tremendous national effort in order to promote a country every golfer and traveler should visit. “It’s very important for us to have foreign investors see all this international exposure golf is giving to Colombia. Many doors will open because of this,” added Calle.
This week’s Pacific Colombia Tour Championship presented by Helm, the second in a series of five events opening a new local Tour, is a great way to finish the month. The tournament will provide US $130,000 dollars in prize money, with a check for US $23,400 going to the champion.
The Club Campestre Guaymaral’s Course No. 1, a 7,051-yard par-72 located north of Bogota, will mean new adjustments. Most of the competitors are coming from Barranquilla, where last week’s tournament offered extremely windy conditions at sea level.
“It is a big adjustment from last week. Having played in such harsh conditions our golf swing underwent several changes,” said Jamaica’s John Bloomfield, a member of both the TLA and the Canadian Tour. “The biggest change is trying to refocus and get used to hitting the ball at our target, versus 45 yards left or right of our target to deal with the wind.”
Also in play is the fact that the city of Bogota is at an altitude of over 8,000 feet, which allows the ball to fly about ten percent further than usual because of the thin air. “You suddenly hit a shot up high and your ball flies a lot more than you expect it to, or you make a three-quarter swing expecting it to fly ten percent further and it doesn’t. It’s something we have to deal with. Every week is obviously different and provides new challenges,” commented Chile’s Benjamín Alvarado, the hottest player on both Tours following a win at the Chile Open three weeks ago and a runner-up finish in Barranquilla last Sunday.
The rain, which forced this event to be postponed last December, seems to have been falling for months and it could influence the tournament as well. “It’s obviously wet, but it’s a great golf course. Although we will depend on the weather, I believe this is a tournament to go well under par,” added the experienced Argentine Sebastián Fernández, winner of two TLA events last season.
The 150-player field from sixteen nations starting this tournament will also feature several other notables such as Argentina’s Alan Wagner, Rafael Gómez and Luciano Dodda, Colombia’s José Manuel Garrido, Julián Colmenares, Oscar Álvarez and Jesús Amaya, the USA’s Vince Covello and Cody Slover and Canada’s Adam Hadwin.
