TULUM, Mexico – Kicking off its 16-event inaugural season Thursday with the Bupa Championship at Tulum, PGA TOUR Americas will set the bar high for the up-and-coming talents competing across Latin America and North America. By the end of the season, the new Tour will reward the best 10 players with 2025 Korn Ferry Tour cards. Before we get to that point, players will have to go through the six-event Latin America Swing to determine the top 60 who will secure exempt status for the North America Swing.

In no specific order, the following are 10 players worth watching during a busy nine-week stretch that will take PGA TOUR Americas across five countries in Latin America:

Davis Shore

This 25-year-old University of Alabama alum seems to be on the brink of moving to the next level. Making his Korn Ferry Tour debut earlier this month, he made back-to-back cuts in Argentina (T44) and Chile (T11) while posting three rounds of 65 or better. Recording five top 10 finishes between PGA TOUR Latinoamérica, where he was the Brazil Open runner-up and finished the season ranked 13th, and PGA TOUR Canada, where he won the Osprey Valley Open to finish the year ninth, Shore constantly proved his strength. He had a scoring average of 69.5 strokes across 60 rounds and 17 starts across both Tours last year.

Mateo Fernández de Oliveira

Coming off a strong 2023 season that saw him transition from an amateur to the pro ranks, this 24-year-old from Buenos Aires, Argentina, has gained experience and carries strong momentum heading into PGA TOUR Americas. As the 2023 Latin America Amateur Championship winner he made three major championship starts last season and finished 16th in the PGA TOUR University Rankings. Making four PGA TOUR Canada starts late last season, with a tie for sixth as his best finish, he has gotten familiar with the competition he will be facing this year.

Devon Bling

The runner-up at the 2018 U.S. Amateur Golf Championship, where he lost the 36-hole final to Viktor Hovland (6&5), Bling played the 2019 Masters and the 2019 U.S. Open at Pebble Beach, as a 19-year-old. Following a strong amateur career at UCLA, he turned pro in 2022. As a PGA TOUR Canada member, he came close to victory last season, losing a playoff at the Commissionaires Ottawa Open and tying for second at the Windsor Championship. He only missed one cut in nine starts and had a scoring average of 68.32 on his way to a 10th-place finish in the 2023 Fortinet Cup Standings.

Marcos Montenegro

He broke through to win the 2023 Diners Club Peru Open last season on PGA TOUR Latinoamérica. That win, his first as a pro, pushed him to a 10th-place finish on the season-ending Points List. The 26-year-old from Loberia, Argentina, is poised to return to the Korn Ferry Tour, where he spent one full season in 2022.

Ben Carr

Following a 17th-place finish in the PGA TOUR University Rankings, Carr had a consistent 2023 season on PGA TOUR Canada. He made the cut in six of his seven starts with a tie for sixth at the Osprey Valley Open as his best finish. He went on to secure his 2024 PGA TOUR Americas card as No. 57 in the Fortinet Cup Standings. The 23-year-old Georgia Southern University alum was the runner-up at the 2022 U.S. Amateur — losing the 36-hole final match to Sam Bennett — earning him major championship starts at the 2023 Masters and the U.S. Open.

José de Jesús Rodríguez

The oldest player to make this list at 43, Rodríguez remains a force in Latin America. As a 2018 Korn Ferry Tour winner, he achieved a lifelong dream of playing on the PGA TOUR in 2018-19. Besides competing on the Korn Ferry Tour, between 2022 and 2023 he won two PGA TOUR Latinoamérica events to become the Tour’s winningest player with six tournament titles in only 56 starts. Back in 2011, two years before the Canadian Tour became PGA TOUR Canada, he ventured into Canadian soil to claim Player of the Year honors with two wins and a runner-up finish.

Stuart Macdonald

A tie for 24th at the PGA TOUR’s Mexico Open at Vidanta, an event he entered as a Monday qualifier four weeks ago, proves he is ready to have another strong year. Playing 14 events, eight on PGA TOUR Latinoamérica and six on PGA TOUR Canada, this 29-year-old from Vancouver had an impact across both Tours in 2023. He collected a victory at the Commissionaires Ottawa Open, a tie for second at the Windsor Championship, and a solo third at the Colombia Classic. While finishing the season ranked seventh in Canada and 20th in Latin America, he also produced the lowest round of the season on both Tours and had a combined scoring average of 68.95 in 54 rounds played.

Isidro Benítez

A PGA TOUR Latinoamérica champion at age 19, when he claimed the 2018 Visa Argentina Open, Benítez is still quite young and hungry for success. He earned his PGA TOUR Americas card following a lackluster season that saw him finish 47th on the Latin America Points List. Working hard to get back on track and compete at this new stage, the 25-year-old lefty worked hard over the past few months and showed progress while making his first PGA TOUR cut at the 2023 World Wide Technology Championship and tying for 11th at the Korn Ferry Tour’s 2024 Panama Championship.

Sandy Scott

Making his professional debut last season on PGA TOUR Latinoamérica, this 25-year-old from Nairn, Scotland, finished 14th in the Points List with a trio of top 6 finishes in 12 starts. A two-time All-American at Texas Tech, Scott posted a 2-1-1 record as a member of the Great Britain and Ireland Walker Cup team in 2019. Both his victories came in singles play, defeating Andy Ogletree, 1-up, and Brandon Wu, 4 and 3, at Royal Liverpool Golf Club.

Julián Etulain

At the age of 35, this Argentine veteran is back on the drawing board. A former Korn Ferry Tour champion and a four-time winner on PGA TOUR Latinoamérica, Etulain carries the experience of 290 starts on PGA TOUR-sanctioned Tours. He was a PGA TOUR member for two full seasons (2016-17 and 2018-19), making 50 starts at the highest level. After finishing the PGA TOUR Latinoamérica season ranked 19th, he turned two starts on PGA TOUR Canada into a 64th-place finish in the Fortinet Cup Standings.