PGA Tour professional Jhonattan Vegas has lived in Texas for years, enjoying his faculty golf on the College of Texas below legendary coach John Fields.
However the 37-year-old’s Venezuelan roots run deep. Vegas was born and raised within the inland metropolis of Maturín. He discovered the sport on a makeshift nine-hole course constructed for workers of the oil firm for whom his father labored. He gained the nation’s Junior and Newbie titles and confirmed sufficient promise to compete within the World Junior Golf Championships in San Diego, tying for sixth at Torrey Pines.
Vegas additionally turned the primary participant from his nation to compete within the Presidents Cup, and in 2021 he was the nation’s golf consultant within the 2020 Summer time Olympics, the place he completed sixteenth.
So when he sees one thing that reminds him of residence, as he did throughout the latest Kentucky Derby, Vegas is fast to take discover.
Memorial: PGA Tour streaming on ESPN+
When Vegas was coming off the course at TPC Potomac at Avenel Farm as a part of the Wells Fargo Championship, he watched the opening to the Derby and seen that jockey Sonny Leon was driving Fortunate Strike. Leon is a local of Aragua, Venezuela, and Vegas’ first inclination was to wager on his countryman.
“It was humorous,” Vegas stated on Thursday after his spherical at The Memorial. “We had been in D.C. And I completed my Saturday spherical and I’m sitting round ready for the Kentucky Derby. I see it’s a Venezuelan jockey. There’s normally one or two. There’s a Venezuela jockey — let’s wager $500 on it, proper? It’s Venezuelan.
“I assumed my buddy would have a approach to wager on-line, however he didn’t. Simply purely … we didn’t know the chances had been that huge when the man gained. It was a comic story. Unimaginable.”
Whereas the story could seem humorous now, Fortunate Strike went off at 80-1, making it probably the most inconceivable winners within the historical past of the storied occasion.
Which means Vegas would have pocketed $40,000 had he discovered a approach to place the wager.
“That might have been good,” Vegas stated with fun on Thursday.
All was not misplaced that week, nonetheless. By means of some chilly, windy climate Vegas stayed sturdy throughout the closing two rounds and completed the occasion at 1 below, which was ok to tie for fifteenth place.
His paycheck for the four-day occasion was $141,750.