Holding a five-shot lead through 54 holes, Alejandro Tosti of Rosario, Argentina, cruised to victory on the final day of the 90th Abierto del Centro Memorial Eduardo “Gato” Romero presented by Telecom. With the course at Cordoba Golf Club playing tough, in windy conditions, Tosti carded a 2-under 69 in the final round to win by eight shots. The impressive performance by the 25-year old tied for the second-largest PGA TOUR Latinoamérica victory margin.

Tosti finished at 10-under 274, with his countryman Clodomiro Carranza a distant second, at 2-under. Alan Wagner made it three Argentines inside the top three, tying for third with Mexico’s Rodolfo Cazaubón, at 1-under.

“It’s really special to win again in Argentina, especially with the event honoring the memory of Eduardo Romero,” said Tosti, who won the 2019 Termas de Rio Hondo Invitational. “My parents drove four hours this morning to be here, and I’m extremely proud and happy to share this with them.”

Tosti got off to a bit of a shaky start, missing a short birdie putt on No. 1 and making bogey on 2. He saw his lead shrink to three shots. “I stayed very calm after that, just letting things flow, and they did. It was an unbelievable day. I love playing in windy conditions, and I think I proved it today,” said Tosti on how he handled his lead on a day featuring 30 mph wind that prevented anyone from making a big move.

The University of Florida alum went on to put the pedal down with birdies on 4, 6, and 9 to make the turn holding an eight-shot lead. On the back nine, he bogeyed 10 and immediately made consecutive birdies on 11 and 12 to get to 11-under. He made pars the rest of the way, and a bogey on 17, to finish at 10-under.

“I wasn’t paying much attention to the lead I had. Thankfully I had a large lead, so I kept playing the same way, trying to stay aggressive, looking at the pins as I did all week, trusting my shots,” he said of a lead that at one point had him flirting with the PGA TOUR Latinoamérica record set by Nate Lashley in 2016, when he won the Shell Championship by 10 shots in Miami.

As the winner of the fifth event of the season, Tosti charged into the third spot on the Totalplay Cup Points List. With 623 points in the race to move to the 2023 Korn Ferry Tour, Tosti now trails only fellow Argentines Jorge Fernández Valdés and Alan Wagner, who stand first and second, respectively.

“I’ve been a pro for almost four years. Things have been going well, I have been close to moving up to the Korn Ferry Tour. If I keep working to make things happen, as I did at this tournament. I proved this week that I have the game to play on the bigger Tour,” added Tosti, who is 416 points behind Fernández Valdés.

Although Fernández Valdés finished far behind, tied for 27th at 4-over, he had some hardware to pick up at the award ceremony as the winner of the Zurich Argentina Swing. With a win at the VISA Open de Argentina and a tie for second at the Termas de Rio Hondo Invitational, Fernández Valdés was the top performer across the three PGA TOUR Latinoamérica events in Argentina. He finished 219 points ahead of Tosti, who finished in second place.

Key Information

Born on May 30, 1996, Alejandro Tosti won this title at age 25 years, 10 months, 4 days.

This was Alejandro Tosti’s second PGA TOUR Latinoamérica title in 32 starts. His one-shot win at the Termas de Rio Hondo Invitational in 2019 was at the time his first win as a professional.

Largest margins of victory ever recorded on PGA TOUR Latinoamérica:

10 strokes – Nate Lashley (USA) at the 2016 Shell Championship 2016. Finished at 19-under 265 at  Melreese Country Club International Links Miami in Miami, Florida. 

8 strokes – Matías O’Curry (Argentina) at the 2012 Colombia Open. Finished at 9-under 279 at El Rincón de Cajicá in Bogota, Colombia.

8 strokes – Alejandro Tosti (Argentina) at the 2022 Abierto del Centro. Finished at 10-under 274 at Cordoba Golf Club in Cordoba, Argentina.

Starting the day in a tie for fourth, Jorge Fernández Valdés carded a 6-over 77 in Sunday’s final round to tie for 27th, at 4-over. The 29-year-old from Cordoba, Argentina, earned 28 points to improve his Totalplay Cup points total to 1,039. He remains comfortably atop the standings for the fifth consecutive tournament week. Ranked 25th through four events, Alejandro Tosti earned 500 points to increase his season total to 623 to move into the third spot. The following are the Totalplay Cup top-10 players after the fifth of 12 events on the 2021-22 schedule:

Totalplay Cup Standings

(Through the 2022 Abierto del Centro Memorial Eduardo Gato Romero)

RankPlayerPoints
1Jorge Fernández Valdés (Argentina)1,039
2Alan Wagner (Argentina)783
3Alejandro Tosti (Argentina)623
T4Matt Ryan (U.S.)500
T4Kevin Velo (U.S.)500
6Mitchell Meissner (U.S.)482
7Jeremy Gandon (France)474
8Cristóbal Del Solar (Chile)441
9Chandler Blanchet (U.S.)345
10Tommy Cocha (Argentina)331

Five players from Argentina finished inside the top 10 in the final Zurich Argentina Swing standings. Of those five, one stood out more than the rest. Jorge Fernández Valdés won 115th Visa Argentine Open presented by Macro, was a runner-up last week at the Termas de Rio Hondo Invitational and he tied for 27th this week at the Zurich Argentina Swing finale. His performance in those three Argentina-based tournaments earned Fernández Valdés the 2022 Zurich Argentina Swing title and the U.S. $10,000 bonus. 

Fernández Valdés, a native of Cordoba, became the second Argentine to win the Swing, contested for the first time since 2019 due to the global pandemic. In 2018, Clodomiro Carranza, also of Cordoba, won the Swing, defeating Mexico’s Isidro Benitez.

Final Zurich Argentina Swing Standings

Pos.PlayerPoints
1Jorge Fernández Valdés (Argentina)774
2Alejandro Tosti (Argentina)555
3Kevin Velo (U.S.)500
4Jeremy Gandon (France)410
5Tommy Cocha (Argentina)310
6Clodomiro Carranza (Argentina)300
7Rak Cho (South Korea)280
8Nicolo Galletti (U.S.)265
9Alan Wagner (Argentina)263
10David Pastore (U.S.)197

Mexico’s Juan Carlos Serrano and American Alex Scott had the lowest score of the final day (4-under 67). Serrano advanced 35 spots, to tie for 19th, while Scott advanced 32 positions to tie for 27th.

Thirty-five Argentine players saw action this week. Twelve survived the cut, and this is how they finished the tournament:

Pos.NameScore
1Alejandro Tosti71-66-68-69 (10-under)
2Clodomiro Carranza72-70-72-68 (2-under)
T3Alan Wagner72-69-72-70 (1-under)
T5Leandro Marelli 67-72-71-74 (par)
T1Tommy Cocha72-73-71-69 (1-over)
T27Jorge Fernández Valdés70-68-73-77 (4-over)
T33Paulo Pinto71-69-78-71 (5-over)
T39Ignacio Marino71-69-76-75 (7-over)
T43Puma Domínguez73-68-73-76 (8-over)
T50Horacio Carbonetti Jr.74-71-72-77 (10-over)
T56Antonio Maciel74-71-76-75 (12-over)
T64Aram Yenidjeian75-70-77-81 (19-over)

Final-Round Weather: Sunny and clear. High of 78. Wind SSE at 14-32 mph.

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