Hugo Camelo, 19 years old, debuts this Thursday, October 27, in DP World Tour tournaments and seeks to follow in the footsteps of some of the best Portuguese players ever, such as Ricardo Melo Gouveia and Pedro Figueiredo, who spent the cut at the Portugal Masters as amateurs, before becoming professionals.
In the 15 previous editions of the Portugal Masters, 26 Portuguese players participated in the competition. Hugo Camelo will be the 27th in 16 years, a demonstration of the renewal of values in national golf.
Of these 27, only Filipe Lima and António Sobrinho did not take the traditional course of initiation in a club and subsequent ascension to the amateur national teams of the Portuguese Golf Federation (FPG), before the eventual passage to professional.
Ricardo Santos is the record holder for participation in the Portugal Masters, going to play for the 13th time, but he always did it as a professional.
Ricado Melo Gouveia, who this year disputes the competition for the 11th consecutive time, passed the cut as an amateur in 2012, before returning to do so as a professional on seven more occasions. His 5th place in 2017 (tied with Filipe Lima) is the best Portuguese classification ever at the Dom Pedro Victoria Golf Course.
Pedro Figueiredo will compete in the Vilamoura event – which this year distributes 2 million euros in prize money – for the 12th time and he also passed the cut as an amateur in 2011 and 2012, when he was still studying and competing at UCLA (Universidade California Los Angeles, in the United States). In 2014, already as a professional, “Figgy” was the best Portuguese, in the 30th place.
Besides Ricardo Melo Gouveia and Pedro Figueiredo, there was only one other Portuguese amateur to spend the cut at the Portugal Masters, Tomás Santos Silva, in 2015, repeating the feat as a professional in 2019.
This is Hugo Camelo's challenge, living a very positive time. He is number 1 in the BPI National Ranking (for amateurs) and has received an invitation from the FPG to debut, starting tomorrow, in tournaments in the European first professional division.
Last month, the amaranthine that represents the Miramar Golf Club (in Vila Nova de Gaia), shone at the Portuguese Open. It was his debut in the Challenge Tour, the European second division, and he became the first Portuguese to spend the cut since the race moved to Royal Óbidos.
Hugo Camelo even had the luxury of being the best Portuguese in the first round, with 3 strokes under par, appearing in the top-5 at 18 holes.
«From 0 to 10, I give a 10 to the importance of passing a cut in the Challenge Tour, as I did in the International Amateur Championship in Portugal», said Hugo Camelo at the time, who also considered having made «an overall good tournament, where I learned a lot as a player».
Nelson Ribeiro, the FPG national coach, has no doubts about the validity of the invitation given to his player: «Hugo played in all competitions at national level, the European Championships (Individual and Team), the World Championship, the Challenge Tour and has always given a very positive response to those who have had their first participation in these competitions».
When he played the Portuguese Open a month ago, Hugo Camelo was still 100% dedicated to golf. However, he has already enrolled in the Sports Degree at the University of Porto and that fact may even bring him more relaxed for his first Portugal Masters.
Hugo Camelo started at 9:30 am this Thursday from hole 10, alongside Englishman Richard McEvoy and Korean Tae Hee Lee. McEvoy won a EuroPro Tour tournament at Oitavos Dunes, in Cascais, exactly 20 years ago. After that he added three more Challenge Tour titles and one DP World Tour. Lee has been a PGA Tour China player with four international titles.
The first Portuguese was Ricardo Melo Gouveia, at 8:00, from hole 10, with the Italian Renato Paratore (two trophies from the DP World Tour) and the Spaniard Sebastian Garcia Rodriguez (three from the Alps Tour).
Ricardo Santos followed at 9:10 am, also from hole 10, with Italian Lorenzo Gagli (a Challenge Tour title) and Englishman Oliver Fisher (59 strokes in the second round of the 2018 Portugal Masters, the best round ever of the tournament, having a DP World Tour title).
Tomás Melo Gouveia started his fourth participation in the competition at 9:20 am, from hole 1; Tomás Bessa started his third Portugal Masters at 9:20 on hole 10; Vítor Lopes plays the Turismo de Portugal event for the sixth time from 13:40 pm on hole 1; Pedro Figueiredo is scheduled for 15:50, also from hole 1; and Pedro Lencart, the current two-time national absolute champion, competes in the Algarve competition for the second time, starting at 13:50 pm, on hole 10, forming part of the last group.
The tournament was reduced to 120 players this year as it takes place at a time when natural light disappears early.
However, today's Pro-Am (Wednesday) was attended by motor racing driver Tiago Monteiro (who has raced in F1). He was part of the team n.º8 of Turismo de Portugal, with professionals Will Besseling (Netherlands) and Jorge Campillo (Spain).
The best Portuguese was Tomás Bessa, in 4th place (-29), together with the English professional Chris Paisley and the amateurs Paul Melinis, Matt Carr and José Aragão, from Turismo de Portugal-6.
He won the number 10 formation of Turismo de Portugal, with professionals Joakim Lagergren (Sweden) and Daniel van Tonder (South Africa), associated with amateurs Jacob Bramley, Adam Mulroy and James Malyon, with 34 strokes under par.
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