Hugo

Leon

The Chilean just narrowly missed out on keeping his DP World Tour card in 2019 when he finished 116th in the Race to Dubai. It was a tough pill to swallow for Leon who ranked 27th on tour that season in strokes gained approach. He used that stellar ball-striking to play his way back, via the Challenge Tour. The 37-year-old missed just two cuts in 13 events played. Highlights included a win at the British Challenge and a runner-up finish at the Le Vaudreuil Golf Challenge. International gamers should give him a look in DFS contests anytime he tees it up, given his elite ball-striking skills.

The 36-year-old Leon, ranked No. 224 in the world rankings, has one of the most colorful resumes in golf, having played on the PGA Tour, Korn Ferry Tour (then Web.com), PGA Tour Latinoamerica, MacKenzie Tour, China Tour and the European Tour’s Challenge Tour. Leon was a 34-year-old rookie when he came through qualifying school in 2018 and secured four top 10s in his ET debut season only to miss out on keeping his card by one place following the 2019 Portugal Masters. He didn’t compete for 15 months due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but Leon returned to action with a victory at the British Challenge in September followed up by a solo second in the Le Vaudreuil Golf Challenge in July to finish 14th in the rankings. This past season, Leon went 11-for-13 on the Challenge Tour with a win, one second and one top 10, and he went 4-for-6 in European Tour events with a top 10 at ISPS Handa World Invitational in July (T-7). He’s not in the field for this week’s AVIV Dubai Championship.

The 36-year-old Leon, No. 360 in the world rankings, is still chasing his first European Tour win, but his recent result in Northern Ireland marked his first top-10 result since 2019. Leon had a flawless performance over three rounds at Galgorm Castle GC, opening with a bogey-free, 3-under 67 in the first round and staying bogey-free there over the weekend with back-to-back rounds of 65. His only missteps came at Massereene GC during the second round, where his 3-over 73 included two bogeys and a double. In 33 starts on the European Tour over the last four seasons, he’s made 19 cuts. He’s 2-of-3 in 2021 and also 4-of-5 in European Challenge Tour action.

The Chilean was one of the unlucky ones last year, finishing 116th on the Race to Dubai and a single place outside the cut-off mark for those keeping their cards. He’d done his best to secure playing privileges with three top eights and a further three top 25s in his final ten starts. Leon now has limited status although he’s still managed to get five starts so far. However, he’s failed to cash in any of them, shooting over par in nine of 11 rounds. The one bright spot was a pair of opening 68s in the Vic Open but a 77 on day three meant he didn’t get to play Sunday. Perhaps the break has come at a good time for Leon, who certainly has some talent if judged on the back end of 2019.

It might be that the Chilean has found his best form a little too late to save his 2020 card and at 121st on the Race to Dubai he looks set for a return to the Qualifying School bar a fine effort in the next month. This might be a handy spot for it to happen however. The course, at altitude and of traditional design, ought to remind him of home and the Tour de las Americas. He missed the cut at the Dunhill Links but he arrives on a run of 8-for-12 with six top 30s, five of them top 20s, three top tens including T7 on his penultimate start in the KLM Open.

The Chilean golfer entered this week at 145th in the Race to Dubai rankings, in other words with plenty to do to save his card. He will need a very, very good finish to improve drastically on that, but will at least hope not to fall out of the top ten. Most of his work was achieved early as he ticked the first and second holes, then the sixth and finally the ninth and tenth. Only a bogey at the fourth disrupted his momentum. He then added seven pars before a final hole birdie. He’ll attack the Albatross Golf Club in Prague from that tie for third which he shares with Edoardo Molinari, Robert Karlsson and Rikard Karlberg.

It puts the Chilean three back from leader Edoardo Molinari. The Q School grad birdied the par-5 opening hole today but swallowed bogey-4 at No. 7 for the second day running. No matter, after a par at 8 he then connected four birdies from Nos. 9-12 to move up to second place. His round took another twist though as he stalled over the final third with five pars and bogey-5 at 15. While Leon hasn’t played since T39 in the Andalucia Masters at the end of June, he shook off some rust with T18 at last week’s Made In Denmark Challenge on the second tier and that looks to have sharpened him up. It’s hard to know what to expect on the weekend given his lack of experience at this level (18th European Tour start) but it’s been a fun week so far.

The Chilean was profiled on EuropeanTour.com earlier this week where he described the fun he is having on the circuit this year, plotting his route around the world and discovering a whole host of new challenges every week. One thing he will be used to from his South American tour years is old-style courses at altitude; perhaps that was the key to his solid start. His first and last moves were backward (bogeys at the fourth and 18th). But in-between he splashed the red. There was a hat-trick of birdies at the fifth, sixth and seventh, a pair of them at the 11th and 12th, then a sole on at the 17th. He’s 4-for-8 this season with a best of T21 in the Oman Open; he was T2 after 18 holes in Perth and T3 at the same stage last week in Doha.

A walk-off birdie at the par-5 9th ended an excellent first lap at Doha for the Chilean, putting him alongside South Africans Justin Harding and George Coetzee and just a single shot back from leader Adri Arnaus. Starting at 10, Leon made his first birdie at 12 although gave it back straight away. No matter, he scribbled red circles at three of his next five holes (14, 16 and 18) to turn in 33 and kept the birdie-par sequence going with another red number at No. 2. He dropped a shot at the short par-4 7th but headed into lunch in positive mood after a final birdie of the day at 9. We saw Leon on the R1 leaderboard last month when the 34-year-old opened the Vic Open with a 64 but it proved a false dawn as he missed the 54-hole cut. He’ll hope to make a better job of cashing in on it this time and hopefully show the solid form which took him to T21 in last week’s Oman Open.

The Chilean 35-year-old who plays out of Tequesta, Florida has spent most of his career on US mini tours, in Canada, on the LatinoAmerica Tour and trying to crack the Web.com, but he played the Challenge Tour in 2018 and then grabbed a European Tour card via Q School, but this is his first start of the season. Having closed 2018 with three top tens in seven starts perhaps he’s maintained the form despite a three month break? Playing the Beach Course he went bogey-free ticking an eagle-3 at the second and a birdie-3 at the fourth before settling for pars to the turn. The back nine was awash with ticks, at the 10th, 11th and 12th to start, then at the 15th and 18th to close. He has only four ET appearances in the bank and has made a good start in his quest for a first top 60.