PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. — Raul Pereda wasn’t just playing for himself in the final round of PGA Tour Q-School, presented by Korn Ferry.
It was Para Mexico.
And por la familia.
Pereda, a 27-year-old Jacksonville University graduate, may win some tournaments on the PGA Tour. He may realize every kid’s dream of winning a major or a Players Championship.
But he’d be hard-pressed to come up with another back-nine rally like Monday’s finish at the TPC Sawgrass Dye’s Valley.
Pereda came from one shot outside the threshold to earn a PGA Tour card for the 2024 season to be able to absorb a closing bogey and still proudly hold one of five cards awarded at the end of the 72-hole qualifier in which the players were hit with everything Mother Nature had to offer, further exacerbating the jangled nerves and rumbling stomachs that come with the pressure of trying to reach the Tour.
Pereda chipped in twice for birdie at Nos. 10 and 13, then birdied the par-5 16th hole and willed a gutty 5-foot putt into the hole for par at the beastly par-4 17th hole to finish with a 69 and a four-round total of 8-under 272, tying for fourth with Hayden Springer (69) to hit the exact number they needed to finish among the top-five and earn a Tour card.
Pereda brings Mexico back to the Tour
Harrison Endycott of Australia is the medalist at 15-under 265, former Auburn golfer Trace Crowe (67) finished second at 11-under and former Oklahoma golfer Blaine Hale Jr. (71) finished third at 9-under. It was just those five who earned Tour cards.
But Pereda carried more banners than a Medieval festival: he became the third JU player to reach the PGA Tour, following Donnie Hammond and Russell Knox, and he realized a goal of once again giving Mexico representation on the PGA Tour.
After Pereda shot 66 in the third round at Sawgrass to get within the top five, he spoke of what Mexican professionals Abrahan Ancer and Carlos Ortiz, now playing for LIV Golf, meant to him.
Pereda didn’t question their LIV decisions and he appreciated the help they had given him.
But he said his primary motivation during the qualifying process has been all about country and knew he had the right stuff for the PGA Tour since last season when he contended in the early rounds of the World Golf Championship Mexico Open and holed a 249-yard shot for an eagle, the longest hole-out of the PGA Tour season.
“I need to get Mexico back on the PGA Tour,” he said.
Mission accomplished.
“I’m very proud of myself for pushing hard,” said Pereda. “This is for them [his family], and this is for my entire country supporting me.”
Team Pereda is large and loving
Pereda, the youngest of five children, came to the First Coast at the age of 14 to live with his brother Paco, an industrial engineer for Continental Tires, at the Sawgrass Country Club. After finishing high school with online classes, Pereda went to JU and starred for the Dolphins for four years.
His PGA Tour card has been five years as a professional in the making. And his brother was present on Monday. So were their parents, Claudia and Francisco, although Francisco Pereda came out only for the finish since he spent most of Sunday in the emergency room because of kidney stones.
“This is what I’ve been working all my life for,” he said during a post-round interview in which he broke down in tears several times, the release of the intense pressure of Q-School. “And we are there.”
Note the word “we.”
It’s doubtful any PGA Tour rookie will have a larger support group than Pereda. After dropping the final putt he got hugs and backslaps from caddie and six-time European PGA Tour winner Anders Forsbrand, family and friends, JU golf coach Mike Blackburn and athletic director Alex Ricker-Gilbert, former JU player Russell Knox (who had just finished shooting 65 at Sawgrass to tie for 28th and earn full Korn Ferry Tours status), and former PGA Tour player Jeff Klauk, who has become a mentor to Pereda.
Pereda rallied calmly from early disaster
Pereda kept his emotions in check for most of the round, even after errant tee shots into hazards at Nos. 6 and 7 produced a double-bogey and a bogey. He parred the next two holes but turned one shot behind the top five and then missed the 10th green to the left.
He promptly chipped in for birdie to get back within the top-five. After three pars in a row, Pereda missed the green of the 229-yard par-3 14th hole – and chipped in again.
Pereda bashfully said he got good lies on both of the chip-ins. But he also remembered what a sports psychologist told him in the past about a round of golf.
“He said to look at this like a boxing fight,” he said. “You’re going to hit … I got hit early in the round, and I still had 12 holes to go, so I might as well put some punches out there.”
Pereda ‘dances with his emotions’
Pereda’s long-time swing coach, Tom Burnett, said it was part of Pereda’s development from a mental standpoint.
“Instead of fighting his emotions he started to dance with his emotions,” Burnett said. “He learned how to handle them. He became very good at course management.”
Pereda said years of trying to get his card off the PGA Tour Latinoamerica finally taught him just that: don’t pretend nerves don’t exist, just embrace them.
“I was shaking and I was nervous at some point, but I think that I’ve gotten to know myself very well,” he said. “It’s not that I got it under control, but I knew how to play with it.”
Pereda has gotten so good at that, Forsbrand didn’t feel the need to give him a pep talk after his early stumbles.
“Nothing special,” he said. “He was still in the game. It was two swings that were a little loose but apart from that, he was hitting it well.”
Battling tears on final hole
Pereda’s calm almost dissolved after he got up-and-down from par at the par-4 17th, a converted par 5. Realizing that a Tour card was within his reach, he said he was in tears after making the putt, then again after finding the fairway of the dangerous par-4 18th, with water down the left side and out-of-bounds down the right.
“I wanted to cry on 17 green after I made that putt … I wanted to cry when I hit that drive on 18 because that’s probably one of the most important tee shots out there,” he said. “I didn’t look at the leaderboard putting from off the green, but [when he saw it after lagging to within 5 feet] I was like, ‘yeah, I’ve got this.’
“Right when I hugged Anders is when I started crying because we’ve worked so hard the past year, and we’ve accomplished a lot of things, especially mentally and emotionally, where it’s given me the opportunity to be here today and manage everything the best way possible.”
Also in tears was his brother Paco, a key member of his brother’s support team.
“Oh, my goodness,” he said. “I can’t even describe how happy I am. Raul has worked so hard. It tells you how mature he is, the way he handled it today, the amount of pressure.”
Welcome to the PGA TOUR, Raul Pereda!
@RaulP96 entered Q-School with no @KornFerryTour or TOUR status.He now becomes the only active PGA TOUR member of Mexican descent. pic.twitter.com/CUVTviFNS7
— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) December 18, 2023
Pereda will now rep his family and his country on the PGA Tour. He plans on making the most of this opportunity.
“This is something new,” he said. “I need to be very holding my head on how to approach all these things. I’ve got the game, but I just need to know how to manage everything.”
Blackburn is among Pereda’s supporters who has no doubt.
“You could see that he had something special about him,” Blackburn said. “He was always a great ball-striker. When he put together that 100 yards and in more, he got elite.”