Abraham Ancer is the budding Mexican golf star who plays on the PGA Tour and won the 2018 Emirates Australian Open. He played alongside Tiger Woods at the WGC-Mexico Championship. After making his premier appearance for the International Team in the 2019 Presidents Cup, Abraham Ancer had a 2020 PGA Tour season with two runner-up finishes and two other top 10s. Here are 12 things to know about Ancer:
Abraham Ancer: Interesting Facts, Career, Girlfriend and More!
1. Quick Facts:
Height: 5’7″ (1.7 m)
Weight: 160 (70 kg)
Age: 30 (February 27, 1991)
Birthplace: McAllen, Texas
Residence: San Antonio, Texas
Family: Single
Education: University of Oklahoma (2013, Multi-Disciplinary Studies)
Special Interests: Hunting, going to the shooting range, soccer
Turned Professional: 2013
Plays from: Reynosa, Mexico
2. Fun Trivia:
- The Mexican golfer won the Nova Scotia Open of the Web.com Tour in 2015. He finished in the top 5 at the 2018 CIMB Classic.
- The 30-year old was born in South Texas but grew up in Reynosa, Mexico, where he lived until age 14. Parents are both natives of Mexico.
- Abraham went to Sharyland High School in Mission, Texas, where he was All-Valley four years and a three-time MVP.
- The Mexican golfer attended Odessa Junior College before transferring and graduating from the University of Oklahoma.
- If he was not a golfer, Ancer once stated that he’d like to be a Formula I driver. He said he would like to change places with Sebastian Vettel for a day because “to drive an F1 car is way too much fun.”
- The Mexican golfer enjoys collecting putters.
- His bucket list consists of crazy things like: jumping out of an airplane and flying a fighter jet.
- The Mexican golfer’s favorite quote is from Zig Ziglar, who said, “You are the only person on earth who can use your ability.”
- According to the St. Augustine Record, no Latin American player has ever been this close to The Players Trophy after 54 holes.
- The 30-year old is also a fan of hunting, going to the shooting range and soccer.
3. He Got Hooked On Golf, It Was The First Sport He Played:
His first childhood golf memories include beating his dad for the first time and another early memory is that of meeting Jack Nicklaus. As a young kid, he learned how to play golf at Club Campestre de Reynosa.
His infatuation with the game came from his father, who sadly died in 2014 before his career really took off.
The golfer worked his way to the PGA Tour and became the first Mexican to play in the Presidents Cup in 2019. Abraham Ancer was the International team’s joint top point scorer with 3.5 points from five matches.
4. He’s A Businessman:
Away from the course, Ancer co-founded Flecha Azul, a company that produces ultra-premium tequila. Ancer formed the company with Aron Marquez and the manufacturing process actually takes place in Tequila, Jalisco, Mexico. Today, you can now find the brand “Flecha Azul” all over the world.
5. First PGA Tour Victory:
“I’ve always dreamt about winning a PGA Tour event,” he stated to the Boston Globe. “[I’ve been] playing this sport since I can really remember, since I [was] three or four years old. It will obviously mean the world to me and for Mexico, too, because Mexico hasn’t had a player win since, I don’t know, 40 years ago or something. It would be very special.”
The Mexcian golfer found his way onto the PGA Tour in 2016 but had a difficult time, making just six cuts in 19 starts. He finished 197th on the money list. He caught up and played much better on the Web.com tour in 2017 and earned his way back to the big Tour.
6. Ancer Starred Collegiately at Odessa Junior College and the University of Oklahoma:
Ancer was a first team All-American during his first and only year at Odessa College. The young golfer later transferred to Oklahoma University, and graduated in 2013 with his degree in general studies. Due to his performance on the varsity team at Sharyland High, the 5-foot-7, American-Mexcian golfer got himself a spot at Odessa Junior College for the 2009-10 season. He was victorious five times, was a first-team All-American and was named the 2010 Jack Nicklaus Award winner as the national junior college player of the year. According to Golf Digest, he met the Golden Bear that year at the Memorial Tournament and remembers it “like being at Disneyland.”
The young golfer soon transferred to Oklahoma and immediately starred for the Sooners. His school bio summarizes his list of accomplishments:
“Finished second in OU history in career scoring average in relation to par with a 72.42 (+0.93), behind only three-time All-American Anthony Kim (71.73; +0.22) … Sits third on OU’s career list with 352 birdies in his three seasons … Tied for third all-time at OU with 10 career eagles … Finished with an OU career-best 57 rounds of par or better”
As a sophomore, Abraham shattered records at the 2011 Desert Shootout. The young golfer earned medalist honors and set the school (by 8 strokes) with 3-round 195 (-21), breaking the previous record held by Anthony Kim. Abraham’s final round 9-under 63 tied a school record for the lowest 18-hole score. Ancer quickly turned professional soon after graduating, as he entered the Web.com Tour.
7. He’s Going For World Rankings, Particularly After A 2018 Emirates Australian Open Title:
In 2018, the Mexican golfer was outside the top-250 in the Official World Golf Rankings. Currently, the man sits No. 20 as per ranking on Wikipedia. His games like a 5-stroke win at the 2018 Emirates Australian Open have skyrocketed his ranking and stock.
Another major victory for Ancer’s win Down Under was an automatic qualification to this year’s Open Championship at Royal Portrush.
”It’s been crazy,” Ancer stated. ”This win is all for my family. They’ve been there every single day of my life pushing me, or Mexican golf as well.”
8. He Holds Dual Mexican and American Citizenship:
This is because Ancer was born in the south Texas part of America but raised in Reynosa, Mexico. Therefore he has dual citizenship.
The 30-year old was born in McAllen (Tex.) on 27 February 1991, but his family moved across the border soon after. According to a biography about him with Golf Digest, Reynosa in Mexico has been in the news recently for the wrong reasons: 22 suspected migrants disappeared from a charter bus headed towards Reynosa which is one of Mexico’s most dangerous border cities.
Situated on the southern bank of the Rio Grande and 15 miles south of McAllen, Texas, it’s a major location in the war between the Gulf and Los Zetas drug cartels – but this is unlikely to affect the golfer much as Abraham is now based out of McAllen. His father taught him how to play at the Club Campestre de Reynosa and Abraham and Veronica Ancer, his parents (dual citizens of the U.S. and Mexico) still reside in the same city of Reynosa!
“He took his son to the golf course while he was still in diapers,” Golf Digest writes. “By the time Ancer was 3, he had a club in his hand. At 10, he beat his dad for the first time.”
9. This Is Why Abraham Ancer Chooses To Play For The Mexican Flag:
Ancer came into this world in McAllen, Texas, but his family quickly moved to Reynosa, Mexico.
“All my life I grew up in Mexico, until I was 15,” he said. “And all my family is from there. A lot of people ask me, ‘Hey, why do you play for Mexico?’ That’s all I knew. All my friends know I’m very Mexican.”
Currently, the man lives in Texas but chooses to represent Mexico professionally.
“I’m from a Mexican family, I was raised in Mexico and I’ve always considered myself to be Mexican,” Ancer said to ESPN in Feb. 2018. “I’m obviously very thankful for the opportunities I’ve had in the United States, but I feel Mexican.”
He actively represents the Mexican golf community but also takes inspiration from famous female Mexican golfers such as Lorena Ochoa and Gaby Lopez.
“Golf is growing in this country, but we need to work harder to generate more players in the future,” Ancer said. “Lorena Ochoa was an amazing thing for us and she inspired many like myself to know a Mexican can be the world No. 1. I hope I can do something similar.”
Abraham is second only to Ochoa on a Ranker ranking list of best current Mexican golfers.
10. In 2015, He Excelled Enough to Make the PGA Tour, But was Relegated After Just One Season:
Mexican golfer Abraham Ancer won the Nova Scotia Open in 2015 after shooting a final-round 68 to claim his first win on the Web.com Tour.
The then 26 year old made it through all three stages of the qualifying circuit in the fall of 2014 to secure a Web.com Tour card. The Mexican lad really broke through by winning the 2015 Nova Scotia Open, beating Bronson Burgoon with a 15-foot birdie putt on the first hole of a playoff.
He became the Open’s fifth Mexican winner, following Keoke Cotner, Esteban Toledo, Alex Aragon and Carlos Ortiz.
“It was a pretty straight putt. It was right-edge and I smoked it dead center,” Ancer said to the AP. “I’ve been waiting for this moment for a while. To win out here is tough. I don’t think it’s going to sink in for a while.”
Rankings like these earned him a high-enough spot on the Web.com earnings list to punch his PGA Tour card. The golfer couldn’t cope at first with the elevated competition, which led to relegation after a No. 190 placement on the FedEx Standings.
“My first year here on tour was a rough one,” said Abraham Ancer, who missed 13 cuts in 2015-16. “I just tried to change a lot of things. I didn’t really stick to what got me to the PGA Tour in the first place. I wanted to hit it farther, I wanted to hit it higher, and it just didn’t really pan out very well. I changed equipment all the time, which was terrible.”
The Mexican earned his way back a year later after a No. 3 finish on the Web.com earning list.
11. He’s Miura’s First-Ever “PGA Tour Brand Ambassador”:
A big deal for Miura, which has been making finely-crafted forged irons for years (including, by report, for Tiger Woods) never sought out a formal relationship with a Tour player, until Abraham started making waves.
In a release, Miura characterized Ancer as “the perfect partner to grow Miura’s presence on and off the course,” citing a desire to grow the company’s reach to Mexico.
12. Career:
2013:
Abraham Ancer went professional in 2013.
2014:
The next year in December 2014, he was tied for 35th place at the Web.com Tour Qualifying School final stage.
2015:
The golfer played on the Web.com Tour in 2015, where he finished runner-up at the Brasil Champions in March and won the Nova Scotia Open in July.
2016:
Abraham Ancer finished 11th place in the regular-season money list, which earned him a PGA Tour card for the 2016 season. In his rookie year, Ancer didn’t perform consistently, with the best finish of T-18 at the FedEx St. Jude Classic. He ranked at 190th in FedEx Cup points and couldn’t maintain his card for the 2017 season, which sent him back to the Web.com Tour.
2017:
During the 2017 Web.com Tour, Ancer scooped up five top-5 finishes, including three runner-up finishes, which permitted him to secure his PGA Tour card for the 2018 season by coming in 3rd place on the regular season money list.
2018:
During the 2018 season, Ancer reached 9th place at the OHL Classic at Mayakoba, 8th place at the Houston Open, 4th place at the Quicken Loans National, 5th place at the RBC Canadian Open, and 7th place at the Dell Technologies Championship.
The Quicken Loans National was part of the Open Qualifying Series and his high finish helped give himself an entry to the 2018 Open Championship, his first major championship, where Ancer had rounds of 71 and 78 and missed the cut. It was during the PGA Tour that season Ancer amassed US$1.7 million and finished 60th place in the FedEx Cup.
The Mexican had a good start to the 2018–19 season with top-5 finishes in the CIMB Classic and the Shriners Hospitals for Children Open, results that lifted him into the world top-100 for the first time.
2019:
The golfer followed this up with a 5-stroke victory in the Australian Open, a week before representing Mexico in the World Cup of Golf. His Australian Open win gave him an entry to the 2019 Open Championship. The Reynosa native finished second in the Northern Trust in August 2019 and ended the year by tying for 21st at the Tour Championship. This earned the American-born golfer $478,000 in FedEx Cup bonus money.
The Texan-born’s strong play in 2019 qualified him for the 2019 Presidents Cup International team. The event was held at Royal Melbourne Golf Club in December 2019. The U.S. team was victorious in the Internationals 16–14. The Mexican went 3–1–1. His lone loss came in the Sunday singles, 3 & 2 against U.S. playing-captain Tiger Woods.
Ancer had told the media before the event that he wished to play Woods in singles. Woods said afterward “Abe wanted it, he got it.”
2020:
At the 2020 RBC Heritage, the Reynosa native ended up runner-up shooting −21, earning him $773,900. The golfer led the tournament in Driving Accuracy (82.1%) and Greens In Regulation (90.3%).
FAQs:
- How much does Abraham Ancer weigh?
Abraham Ancer, who stands 5’7″ has a weight of 155 pounds or 70kgs.
- Is Abraham Ancer married?
No, the golfer has a girlfriend named Nicole Curtright. She is a consumer experience and marketing director at Porsche Cars North America, according to her LinkedIn page. Nicole also has experience in administration and client relations. Her Instagram shows the 30-year-old beauty to be a woman of many talents – especially enjoys getting on the golf course herself.
As for Abraham Ancer, she has a bunch of photos with him posted across her social media, many accompanied with romantic and doting messages.
In the start of 2020, she uploaded this caption to her social media saying: “Beyond thankful for this guy. Thank you for giving me another reason to love this game. 2020 is just getting started.”
- Where did Abraham Ancer go to college?
Abraham Ancerwent to the University of Oklahoma and had the second best career scoring average in his school’s history, behind Anthony Kim.
After going to Odessa Junior College in Texas, Ancer played three years for the Oklahoma Sooners and left quite the legacy. He finished in second place in OU history in career scoring average in relation to par at 72.42 (+0.93), second to only Anthony Kim (71.73; +0.22).
He completed his college career with two wins and shot a nine-under 63 and the Desert Shootout his sophomore year, tied for low 18-hole round in school history.
- How tall is Abraham Ancer the golfer?
His height is 5 foot-7 inches.
The Mexican golfer has joined the ranks of shorter PGA Tour players, listed at 5 foot 7 inches. Although Ancer doesn’t hit the ball terribly far (295.9 average driving distance, 101st on Tour) the man hits a fairly high percentage of fairways. Ancer is a reminder that not all modern players have to be large or Koepka-sized to succeed.
Abraham’s height puts him somewhere under Rory McIlroy (5-9) and in the realm of small, successful players like David Lingmerth and Brian Harman (each listed at 5-7).