PGA TOUR tournament coming to Riviera Nayarit in October

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Welcoming this event for the first time, El Tigre Club de Golf provides a challenging golf course designed by the team of Robert Von Hagge, Mike Smelek and Rick Baril. (Courtesy of El Tigre GC)

pgatour.com (September 24, 2021).- The PGA TOUR Latinoamérica’s Dev Series announced on Thursday, September 23rd, that its season-ending Dev Series Final will be played at El Tigre Club de Golf in Mexico’s Riviera Nayarit. Featuring a projected field of 84 players, the 72-hole tournament is set for October 7-10, and it will award at least 20 PGA TOUR Latinoamérica cards for the upcoming 2021-22 season.

With the global pandemic slowing things across the region, the Dev Series had an extended regular season that began in January of 2020 in Mar del Plata, Argentina, and concluded earlier this month in Caracas, Venezuela. The leading-five players available from each of the 15 co-sanctioned Dev Series events qualified for the season finale. In addition, the field includes those who finished 61st through 75th on the 2020-21 PGA TOUR Latinoamérica Points List.

“The 2021 Dev Series Final will be a great success. The course at El Tigre Club de Golf is ready to welcome and test the players who will come looking for their PGA TOUR Latinoamérica card,” said José Manuel Garrido, Dev Series Executive Director. “We want to thank our partners at Paradise Village and the Riviera Nayarit Convention & Visitors Bureau for their efforts in bringing this event to such a great destination in Mexico.”

The players competing at El Tigre next month will be hoping to follow in the footsteps of notable Dev Series Final alums such as current PGA TOUR members Sebastián Muñoz and Mito Pereira. After finishing inside the top 10 at the 2015 Dev Series Final, Muñoz went on to become a PGA TOUR champion, with a victory at the 2019 Sanderson Farms Championship. A Dev Series Final top-10 finisher as well in 2018, Pereira won three Korn Ferry Tour events this past season to earn an early promotion to the PGA TOUR, where he is a 2021-22 member.

“We are proud to provide the rising stars in Latin America with a pathway to PGA TOUR Latinoamérica and the higher levels of PGA TOUR golf. The Dev Series Final is a unique opportunity for many of them to start their international careers,” added Garrido.

The top-five players at the Dev Series Final will secure exempt status for the 2021-22 PGA TOUR Latinoamérica season, while the players finishing sixth through 10th will be exempt for the first portion of the season. Players finishing 11th through 15th and 16th through 20th, and ties, will receive two different conditional-status categories.

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Photo: PGA.COM

Welcoming this event for the first time, El Tigre Club de Golf provides a challenging golf course designed by the team of Robert Von Hagge, Mike Smelek and Rick Baril. Open since 2002, the 7,239-yard, par-72 has welcomed several professional events through the years, including a World Cup Qualifying Tournament played here between 2002 and 2005.

“We are really excited to be hosting the Dev Series Final. This will be a great opportunity to showcase the golf course itself, the quality of the design of El Tigre and just what a great golf course it is. On top of that, we also look forward to promoting such an incredibly beautiful area as Riviera Nayarit,” said Steve Johnson, Golf Director at El Tigre Club de Golf.

While at Riviera Nayarit, the Dev Series Finals competitors and visitors will have a taste of a vacation paradise nestled between the Pacific Ocean and the Western Sierra Madre Mountains. This destination is one of the largest golf corridors in the Pacific, with popular tourism areas such as Nuevo Vallarta, Flamingos, Bucerias, La Cruz, Punta Mita, San Francisco, and Lo de Marcos.

“We’re thrilled to introduce Riviera Nayarit to the Dev Series players, staff and spectators,” said Marc Murphy, Managing Director of Riviera Nayarit Convention & Visitors Bureau. “Riviera Nayarit has made a name for itself among golfers by offering the best venues and the most-renowned tournaments. The playing experience at El Tigre Club de Golf is of the highest level, with its new upscale championship facilities and the magnificent mountain, tropical forest and beach landscapes that surround it.”

Source: pgatour.com

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