When Mito Pereira decided to hang up his clubs following relegation from LIV Golf, even his own teammates were caught off guard…
He was only one hole away from forever being remembered as a major champion.
But a little over three years on from his haunting collapse at the 2022 PGA Championship, Mito Pereira announced his retirement from professional golf in December, aged just 30.
It is of course cruel that, for all his accomplishments in the amateur game and across multiple professional tours, Pereira may now be best remembered for his fateful 72nd hole at Southern Hills.
Standing on the tee box with a one-shot lead, Pereira aggressively took driver and nervously erred right, finding a watery grave. He made double-bogey, missing out on a playoff by one shot as Justin Thomas edged out Will Zalatoris to take the title in sudden death.
The Chilean also lost in a bronze medal playoff at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021 and represented the International Team in the 2022 Presidents Cup.
Pereira gave up his PGA Tour card to join LIV Golf when ranked 44th in the world rankings in 2023, but called time on his career after being relegated from the league last season.
In his lengthy statement released before Christmas, Pereira did not indicate what he plans to do next – only that “my main desire is to step away from constant travel, return to Chile, and focus on my personal life”.
The news of such a talented player bringing his career to an abrupt end stunned many in golf circles. As it turns out, even Pereira’s own teammates on his former Torque GC team were surprised by his decision.
“It was a shock for anyone who played golf and has seen how talented he is,” Carlos Ortiz tells TG. “Mito was concentrating on keeping his card and trying to figure out his life – so behind the scenes he was just preparing for whatever outcome was going to happen.
“At the end of the day, we all want him to be happy, and that’s the path he chose. As his friend, we support him and really hope he finds the happiness he’s looking for.”
Ortiz’s Mexican countryman Abraham Ancer has been traded from the Fireballs GC team to fill the void left on Torque GC.
“I had no idea that he was going to retire from golf,” Ancer admits. “Maybe take a couple of months off or something like that. I talked to him the day he announced it and it seemed that he was very happy.
“He’s done it before, I guess. He didn’t play golf for a couple of years, I guess when he was 15 or 17 years old. And then he came back and played amazing golf.”
Indeed, this isn’t the first time that Pereira has been disillusioned with this unforgiving sport. In his teenage years, Pereira walked away from the game completely to live a “normal life” with his friends. He eventually returned before his 18th birthday and won on the Chilean Professional Tour before moving to the US and accelerating his journey to the PGA Tour by playing college golf at Texas Tech.
“I feel like there’s a lot more to life than just golf,” Ancer continues. “And for some people, golf might be it. But for Mito, it might be something else, which is completely fine. I wish him the best. He’s a great friend, a great person, [and] a great golfer.”
Pereira mustered just two top-20 finishes in his last two seasons with LIV and finished 51st in the 2025 individual standings, comfortably inside the league’s Drop Zone. Had he continued, Pereira could have played a season of the Asian Tour’s International Series events in a bid to earn his LIV status back.
“There was a little suspicion within ourselves and the teams that he wasn’t completely happy with golf,” Sebastian Munoz, who fired a round of 59 in Indianapolis in Torque GC colors last season, explains.
“He was still staying positive because he wanted to keep his card and still be here. But he was just letting fate decide what he was going to do next. He tried his best. I feel like he was playing really good golf towards the end. It was just a little too late. Then he had an injury so he couldn’t really play [LIV] Promotions or anything like that. So he just let fate decide on him.”
Munoz sympathises with Pereira’s decision but just wishes it hadn’t come so soon.
“Golf is a really tough sport,” the Colombian says. “It’s a very demanding sport in hours, determination, mental will, mental strength. You’ve got to have all of that because it’s a sport where in this case, 50-something guys lose every week and only one wins. I was surprised because I do feel like he’s really talented and he’s quite young. I wasn’t on board with him retiring this young.
“But at the same time, he’s an adult and it’s his life and it’s his time here on Earth. He wants to spend it with his family in Chile and not really move a lot and not really keep travelling. He’s been travelling ever since he was 15 or earlier. So he wanted a break and he wanted to change the scenery. So I support him because I love the guy.”
Munoz had hoped Pereira turned a corner last year after encouraging him to change coach in a bid to fix his driver woes, but that proved to be a false dawn.
“The only conversation I had with him was halfway through the season, things weren’t really working out with his old coach,” he explains. “I thought that he was going to do better with a new coach, Jose, the guy I work with as well. And we did find success. He did find a better way to hit the ball. He wasn’t as scared mentally with the driver after he switched. And I think it did help.
“But as I told you before, it was maybe a little too late. It wasn’t enough.”
So Pereira can now enjoy some time at home he has longed for, away from the spotlight. He steps away as a three-time winner on the Korn Ferry Tour and he has also competed in all of the game’s biggest events. He then cashed in on LIV’s arrival by banking over $17 million in prize money across three fairly mediocre seasons on the league. It should be noted that could well have expedited his decision, too.
By most metrics, Pereira’s relatively short golf career has been an overwhelming success.
“The time has come to pause,” his statement read. “Chile is my place in the world, and my family is my reason for being. Golf taught me resilience, how to navigate both good and difficult moments, and how to make discipline and goals a way of life. I believe I am well prepared for what lies ahead.”
What exactly that will be remains to be seen. It would perhaps be foolish to rule Pereira out from making a second comeback to the game, especially given he has so much time on his side.
But as Joaquin Niemann, the Torque GC skipper, surmised: “He’s the owner of his own destiny. He decided not to keep playing. He has different priorities in his life and I’m pretty happy for him.
“He’s always going to be part of the team no matter what.”