Fortinet Cup: KIA Open’s leading players earn big heading into final Latin America Swing event in Colombia

Led by tournament winner Thomas Longbella, who turned the 54-hole shortened KIA Open into his first professional win, the top performers at the Quito Tennis & Golf Club strengthened their position in the race for the PGA TOUR Americas’ Latin America Swing top honors. Longbella advanced from 33rd to fourth in the standings, moving within 102 points of Fortinet Cup No. 1 Matthew Anderson of Canada, who leads at 705 points.

“I'm super excited for the rest of the season,” said Longbella who already has his sights set on the North America Swing. “I played the last couple of years up in Canada, so I feel I have some good experience there. Yeah, (I’m) in a great spot for the rest of the year.”

The KIA Open win was Longbella’s second top-10 of the season, following a tie for 10th at the Totalplay Championship at Atlas Country Club in Guadalajara, Mexico. The 26-year-old from Wisconsin made only two bogeys last week to claim the lowest bogey average on Tour at 1.77 bogeys per round. He also owns the lowest par-5 scoring average at 4.44.

Despite the disappointment of not having a chance to challenge Longbella on the final day, after he leapfrogged him with an eagle on the penultimate hole Saturday, Gunn Yang walked away from Quito with 300 Fortinet Cup points. The 30-year-old from San Diego, California, had only collected six points while making one cut in four previous starts.

“It was a rough start (to the season), no doubt about it,” said Yang, whose only cut made before Quito resulted in a tie for 55th in Guadalajara. “I went through some swing changes, and I guess they hadn’t settled in until now. I feel a little more comfortable with my swing now. I can shape the ball better off the tee and from fairway to green. Hopefully, I’ll keep this momentum going into our last Latin America Swing event.”

Tied for 123rd in the standings entering the KIA Open week, Yang now ranks a solid 10th.

Entering the week in the bubble for the top 60 and battling to secure exempt status for the North America Swing, Harry Hillier and Ben Carr benefited off a tie for third finish that earned each 145 Fortinet Cup points. Hillier moved up from 54th to 20th, while Carr charged from 56th to 21st.

Joining Hillier and Carr in the tie for third, Ricardo Celia was another big winner in Quito. A two-time PGA TOUR Latinoamérica champion, the 32-year-old from Barranquilla, Colombia, made his PGA TOUR Americas debut courtesy of a sponsor exemption. He had no status on Tour entering the week and the tie for third allowed him to make his first Fortinet Cup points list appearance as No. 30. While securing a spot in the Latin America Swing-ending Inter Rapídisimo Golf Championship that will take us to his home country next week, Celia is now comfortably inside the top 60.

“I have been in limbo for the past year and a half, and that’s been quite tough. Now, I have a Tour and a calendar to play for the rest of the year. That gives me enormous peace of mind,” said Celia, who finished just outside the top 25 at the Korn Ferry Tour’s Astara Golf Championship this past February in Bogota.

Moving to No. 31, right behind Celia, Evan Brown has also locked up a spot inside the top 60 before the conclusion of the Latin America Swing. After opening the season with three missed cuts, the 24-year-old Loyola University Maryland alumnus has bounced back with consecutive top-10 finishes: a tie for 7th in Peru and a tie for 10th in Ecuador.

“Locking up my card through the end of the summer was one of my goals coming into these six events. To be able to get that done and guarantee it last week was huge. I felt really good in Peru and just kind of rode the tail of that through Ecuador and kept playing well, which was great,” said Brown, who has shot 70 or better in six of his last seven rounds on Tour.

Another player tying for tenth in Quito who managed to get his season going in the right direction was Argentina’s Mateo Fernández de Oliveira. Entering the week ranked 91st with two missed cuts in four starts, the Buenos Aires native advanced 50 spots in the standings and will head to Bogota as 41st. He is also securely inside the group of players already setting up their plans for summer golf up North.

The race for the Latin America Swing top 2, who will secure Korn Ferry Tour conditional status for 2025, and the top 60, who will be exempt through all the full field events on the PGA TOUR Americas’ North America Swing, will come to an end next week at the Inter Rapidísimo Golf Championship. That final event of the season in Latin America will be played at El Rincón de Cajicá, right outside the capital city of Bogota, Colombia, May 16-19.

Fortinet Cup Points List Top 10

Through 5 of 16 events