Who is Jhonattan Vegas, the history-making world No. 70 leading the PGA Championship?

By Issy Ronald, CNN

(CNN) — If you glance at the PGA Championship leaderboard, you will see a raft of familiar names. There is Scottie Scheffler tied for fifth place, Matt Fitzpatrick tied for second place; further down, there is Bryson DeChambeau tied for 17th, Tommy Fleetwood and Jon Rahm tied for 27th while Rory McIlroy is languishing in a tie for 62nd.

But above them all sits a less familiar name, that of Jhonattan Vegas who is holding a two-shot lead at the halfway point of the PGA Championship.

The 40-year-old Venezuelan, who is ranked No. 70 in the world, has enjoyed a dream start to the tournament, finishing 8-under par through the first 36 holes. In the process, Vegas has made history, becoming the first Venezuelan to hold a lead at a major.

And it’s been a long journey to the top – he was already playing golf by the time he was two years old. His father had grown up caddying near a golf course and passed his love for the sport onto his son.

“As a kid, I would hit anything that I could find. Rocks, broomstick, everything,” Vegas told reporters after his opening round on Thursday. “I would grab anything that I could swing and I would do it. Feel like I was a good athlete as a young kid, so that’s kind of how things started.

“We grew up near a nine-hole golf course owned by the oil companies, and we had access to a course and plus the love of my dad for the game, put it together and we started playing.”

After becoming one of the best junior players in Venezuela, the teenaged Vegas moved to the USA to further his fledgling career, learning English and eventually studying at the Universtiy of Texas.

Early in his professional career he made more history, becoming the first Venezuelan to ever claim a PGA Tour event when he won the Bob Hope Classic in 2011. Becoming such a visible Venezuelan figure, and a national hero, meant that his success was inevitably drawn into the country’s politics.

Golf itself was bound up in Venezuela’s politics too; former president Hugo Chavez closed several of the country’s golf courses that belonged to state-oil company PDVSA and dismissed the sport as “bourgeois,” per Reuters.

More recently, a series of injuries have threatened to derail Vegas’ career. He barely played any golf at all during the 2022-23 season and underwent two surgeries to treat elbow and shoulder injuries.

First, a piece of bone broke off and got stuck in his elbow joint, forcing him to have surgery. Doctors told him his elbow would never fully heal and then complications from that injury caused shoulder issues for which he underwent another surgery.

Such injuries contributed to a long seven-year spell where Vegas failed to notch up any wins. But in July 2024, he returned to winning ways at the 3M Open, ensuring, most importantly for him, that his younger son, Louis, could experience his dad winning a trophy for the first time.

And now, Vegas is enjoying his best ever performance at a major. He followed up his first round of 64 with a second round of 70, marking the first time in 17 major championship starts he has put together two consecutive under-par rounds.

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