Abraham Ancer Sagastegui (; born 27 February 1991) is an American-Mexican professional golfer who played on the PGA Tour and is currently playing on the LIV Golf tour. He won the 2018 Emirates Australian Open and the 2021 WGC-FedEx St. Jude Invitational for his first PGA Tour career victory. In 2024 he won the LIV Golf Hong Kong for his first individual win on the LIV Golf Tour.
Amateur career Ancer was born in McAllen, Texas; raised partially in Reynosa, Mexico; and has dual American and Mexican citizenship. He attended Sharyland High School in Mission, Texas. He played college golf at Odessa College and the University of Oklahoma, from which he graduated in 2013 with a degree in General Studies.
During his one year competing at Odessa, Ancer was a first-team All-American and finished in a tie for second in the Junior College National Golf Championship. At Oklahoma, he saw his most success during his first year, winning twice while having the sixth-lowest scoring average in Oklahoma history of 72.03. During his entire career, he ended up second in all-time scoring average.
Professional career Ancer turned professional in 2013. In December 2014, he tied for 35th place at the Web.com Tour Qualifying School final stage. He played on the Web.com Tour in 2015, where he finished runner-up at the Brasil Champions in March and won the Nova Scotia Open in July.
He finished 11th in the regular season money list, which earned him a PGA Tour card for the 2016 season. In his rookie year, Ancer did not perform consistently, with a best finish of T-18 at the FedEx St. Jude Classic. He finished 190th in FedEx Cup points and couldn't maintain his card for the 2017 season, which sent him back to the Web.com Tour.
During the 2017 Web.com Tour, Ancer carded five top-5 finishes, including three runner-up finishes, which allowed him to secure his PGA Tour card for the 2018 season by finishing in 3rd place on the regular-season money list.
During the 2018 season, Ancer finished 9th at the OHL Classic at Mayakoba, 8th at the Houston Open, 4th at the Quicken Loans National, 5th at the RBC Canadian Open, and 7th at the Dell Technologies Championship. The Quicken Loans National was part of the Open Qualifying Series and his high finish gave him an entry to the 2018 Open Championship, his first major championship, where he had rounds of 71 and 78 and missed the cut. In the PGA Tour season Ancer earned US$1.7 million and finished 60th in the FedEx Cup.
Ancer had a good start to the 2018–19 season with top-5 finishes in the CIMB Classic and the Shriners Hospitals for Children Open, results that lifted him into the world top-100 for the first time. He followed this up with a 5-stroke victory in the Australian Open, a week before representing Mexico in the World Cup of Golf. His Australian Open win gave him an entry to the 2019 Open Championship. Ancer finished second in the Northern Trust in August 2019 and ended the year by tying for 21st at the Tour Championship. This earned him $478,000 in FedEx Cup bonus money.
Ancer's strong play in 2019 qualified him for the 2019 Presidents Cup International team. The event was held at Royal Melbourne Golf Club in December 2019. The U.S. team defeated the Internationals 16–14. Ancer went 3–1–1. His lone loss came in the Sunday singles, 3 & 2 against U.S. playing-captain Tiger Woods. Ancer had told media prior to the event that he wanted to play Woods in singles. Woods said afterward "Abe wanted it, he got it."
At the 2020 RBC Heritage, Ancer finished runner-up shooting −21, earning him $773,900. Ancer led the tournament in Driving Accuracy (82.1%) and Greens In Regulation (90.3%).
In May 2021, Ancer finished second at the Wells Fargo Championship. One shot behind Rory McIlroy. In late July/early August he played in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, finishing tied for 14th place with Norway's Viktor Hovland after scoring 12-under-par for the four rounds of the Men's Tournament. The following week he obtained his first career victory in a PGA Tour event after winning the 2021 WGC-FedEx St. Jude Invitational after two sudden-death playoff holes against Hideki Matsuyama and Sam Burns. With the win, Ancer became the fourth Mexican player to win on the PGA Tour and the first to win on the European Tour.
Ancer joined LIV Golf in June 2022 following the U.S. Open, and was subsequently suspended from the PGA Tour. Ancer has one individual win on the tour, the 2024 LIV Golf Hong Kong and has also claimed a win in the team trophy in Bangkok.
In February 2023, Ancer won the PIF Saudi International on the Asian Tour. He shot a final-round 68 to win by two shots ahead of Cameron Young and claim a wire-to-wire victory.
Amateur wins 2009 Odessa College Invitational 2010 Omega Chemical/Midland College, Texas Junior College Championship, NJCAA District 2 Championship 2011 Desert Shootout, NCAA East-VA Tech Regional
Source:
Professional wins (6) PGA Tour wins (1) LegendWorld Golf Championships (1)Other PGA Tour (0) No.DateTournamentWinning scoreTo parMargin ofvictoryRunners-up18 Aug 2021WGC-FedEx St. Jude Invitational67-62-67-68=264−16Playoff Sam Burns, Hideki Matsuyama
PGA Tour playoff record (1–0) No.YearTournamentOpponentsResult12021WGC-FedEx St. Jude Invitational Sam Burns, Hideki MatsuyamaWon with birdie on second extra hole
European Tour wins (1) LegendWorld Golf Championships (1)Other European Tour (0) No.DateTournamentWinning scoreTo parMargin ofvictoryRunners-up18 Aug 2021WGC-FedEx St. Jude Invitational67-62-67-68=264−16Playoff Sam Burns, Hideki Matsuyama
European Tour playoff record (1–0) No.YearTournamentOpponentsResult12021WGC-FedEx St. Jude Invitational Sam Burns, Hideki MatsuyamaWon with birdie on second extra hole
Asian Tour wins (1) No.DateTournamentWinning scoreTo parMargin ofvictoryRunner-up15 Feb 2023PIF Saudi International63-66-64-68=261−192 strokes Cameron Young
PGA Tour of Australasia wins (1) Legend Flagship events (1) Other PGA Tour of Australasia (0) No.DateTournamentWinning scoreTo parMargin ofvictoryRunner-up118 Nov 2018Emirates Australian Open69-69-65-69=272−165 strokes Dimitrios Papadatos
Web.com Tour wins (1) No.DateTournamentWinning scoreTo parMargin ofvictoryRunner-up15 Jul 2015Nova Scotia Open69-70-64-68=271−13Playoff Bronson Burgoon
Web.com Tour playoff record (1–1) No.YearTournamentOpponentResult12015Nova Scotia Open Bronson BurgoonWon with birdie on first extra hole22017Nashville Golf Open Lanto GriffinLost to birdie on first extra hole
LIV Golf League wins (1) No.DateTournamentWinning scoreTo parMargin ofvictoryRunners-up110 Mar 2024LIV Golf Hong Kong63-62-72=197−13Playoff Paul Casey, Cameron Smith
LIV Golf League playoff record (1–0) No.YearTournamentOpponentsResult12024LIV Golf Hong Kong Paul Casey, Cameron SmithWon with birdie on first extra hole
Other wins (1) No. DateTournamentWinning scoreMargin ofvictoryRunner-up15 Nov 2023Pan American Games−21 (68-67-65-67=267)1 stroke Sebastián Muñoz
Results in major championships Results not in chronological order before 2019 and in 2020. Tournament2018201920202021202220232024Masters TournamentT13T26CUTT39PGA ChampionshipT16T43T8T9CUTU.S. OpenT49T56CUTT54The Open ChampionshipCUTCUTNTT59T11T49T58
CUT = missed the half-way cut "T" = tied NT = no tournament due to COVID-19 pandemic
Summary Tournament Wins 2nd 3rd Top-5 Top-10 Top-25 Events Cuts madeMasters Tournament 0 0 0 0 0 1 4 3PGA Championship 0 0 0 0 2 3 5 4U.S. Open 0 0 0 0 0 0 4 3The Open Championship 0 0 0 0 0 1 6 4Totals 0 0 0 0 2 5 19 14 Most consecutive cuts made – 6 (2020 PGA – 2021 PGA) Longest streak of top-10s – 1 (twice)
Results in The Players Championship Tournament2019202020212022The Players ChampionshipT12CT22T33 "T" indicates a tie for a place C = Cancelled after the first round due to the COVID-19 pandemic
World Golf Championships Wins (1) YearChampionship54 holesWinning scoreMarginRunners-up2021WGC-FedEx St. Jude Invitational4-shot deficit−16 (67-62-67-68=264)Playoff Sam Burns, Hideki Matsuyama
Results timeline Tournament 2018 2019 202020212022ChampionshipT52T39T12T18Match PlayT17NT1T18QFInvitationalT151ChampionsT4NT1NT1NT1 1Cancelled due to COVID-19 pandemic
QF, R16, R32, R64 = Round in which player lost in match play NT = no tournament "T" = tied Note that the Championship and Invitational were discontinued from 2022.
Team appearances World Cup (representing Mexico): 2018 Presidents Cup (representing the International team): 2019
See also 2015 Web.com Tour Finals graduates 2017 Web.com Tour Finals graduates
Notes
References
External links
Abraham Ancer Sagastegui at Mexicanos en París