Why Abraham Ancer Could be A Top-10 Contender at Augusta

First player from Mexico to compete in the #PresidentsCup ✅

No one shined brighter than @Abraham_Ancer. pic.twitter.com/2Ysepx9GnP

— Presidents Cup (@PresidentsCup) February 19, 2020

Abraham Ancer is already a huge name in Mexico. Born in Texas but raised in the border city of Reynosa in the state of Tamaulipas, the 28-year-old has dual citizenship and represents Mexico on the world stage. He has shot up the world golf rankings over the last two years and is the only Mexican player in the top 100. This year, he will compete in his first-ever US Masters, and will be many people’s outside pick for a top-10 finish.
Ancer turned professional at the age of 23 and finished the 2014 season ranked 1548 in the world. By 2018, he had risen to 56 and he ended 2019 ranked 38 to book his place at Augusta. So, what are his chances of making an impact in the first major of the year?

Major impact

The 2020 Masters will not be Ancer’s first major tournament. He attended the Open Championships in 2018 and missed the cut before recording an impressive T16 at last year’s PGA Championships. He followed that with a T49 at the US Open and then missed the cut again at the 2019 Open Championships.

Ancer was also one of the star performers for the international team of the 2019 President’s Cup, where he finished with a 3-1-1 record. His only defeat came in the singles against Tiger Woods on Day Four. He had only expressed his desire to play against Woods a month before.

His 16th-place finish in the PGA stands out as his best performance so far – even greater than his 2018 Australian Open win. It was only his second major and was held at the notoriously difficult Beth Page Black Course. If he can take to the parkland conditions at Augusta with similar ease, he could go even higher.

Recent form

He also brings good form into the new season, with four top-ten finishes, including February’s Genesis Invitational. If he can keep that going, he will arrive in Georgia full of confidence. He is unlikely to compete with the likes of Rory McIlroy and Tiger Woods for the win in the 2020 US Masters golf betting, but he will attract plenty of interest from bettors looking for value picks in the top-10 or top-20 finish markets.

Curious to see where I come from? Here is my story. ||

¿Te interesa saber de donde vengo? Esta es mi historiahttps://t.co/NfvVB5uTz5 @WGCMexico pic.twitter.com/uUBVVLUBq8

— Abraham Ancer (@Abraham_Ancer) February 18, 2020

The long road to success

Ancer has already provided one of golf’s great success stories. His family fled Mexico for Texas when he was 14 due to the growing dangers of drug trafficking in his local area in Reynosa. The situation was so bad that getting to the country club to play was increasingly difficult. His father, a scratch golfer himself, recognised that his son needed to relocate to Texas to flourish. Spells at Odessa College and the University of Oklahoma then followed, where his game excelled beyond all expectations.

His trajectory over the last four years has already earned him a reputation on the professional circuit. And his first PGA win at The Lakes Golf Club in Sydney, followed by his clash with Woods in the President’s Cup, brought him even wider attention. Abraham Ancer seems destined to become a regular contender at major tournaments, and 2020 could be the year he confirms that claim.