PANAMA CITY, PANAMA – Last year in the Dominican Republic, when Jorge Garcia’s putt to tie missed the hole, Paul Chaplet won the 2016 Latin America Amateur Championship and wrapped his arms around his mentor, Alvaro E. Ortiz.
The night before, at the Costa Rican team dinner, Ortiz had joked with his protégé Chaplet that, “We don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow, but, but, if you get lucky, and you play well, and you win, the first packages of tickets to the tournament are going to be ours.”
Ortiz kept his word, and spent the week at Augusta National last April, watching Chaplet become the first Costa Rican to ever play the Masters.