Once again, Matthews takes another step on his road to the PGA Tour in South America

    Brandon Mathews has always known that the PGA Tour, the big leagues of professional golf, was where he was headed.

   He couldn’t possibly have envisioned how many times the crucial crossroads on that journey would come in South America.

   It happened again Sunday when the 27-year-old Matthews, who captured the 2010 PIAA Championship as a junior at Pittston before starring for Brian Quinn at Temple, capped a dramatic late rally with an eagle at the par-5 18^th hole at the Country Club de Bogota’s Lagos Club in Bogota, Colombia to earn his first Korn Ferry Tour victory in the Astara Golf Championship, presented by Mastercard.

   Everything I can find says the eagle capped a 5-under-par 66 for Matthews that gave him a 19-under 264 total. Four rounds on a par-71 course would make it 20-under, but that might just be one of the vagaries of South American golf that Matthews has become all too familiar with. Might be one of those courses in which the par can change depending on which tee boxes are used.

   It was entirely appropriate that Matthews would earn his first Korn Ferry Tour victory in South America. Not only did he earn the top prize of $135,000, but the victory was a giant step toward Matthews’ ultimate goal, a PGA Tour card.

   It was a journey that began in 2016 after Matthews had completed one of the finest careers in the history of Temple golf. Matthews didn’t get too far on what was then the PGA Tour Qualifying School process.

   I was only vaguely aware that there was such a thing as the PGA Tour Latinoamerica in 2017, but Matthews got himself into the qualifying school for that tour in Mexico and started on his long and winding road.

   In March of 2017 Matthews became a winner on the PGA Tour Latinoamerica when he captured the Molina Canuelos Championship at the Canuelos Golf Club in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

   The victory ultimately got Matthews enough status to get into the Korn Ferry Qualifying School process and in 2017 and 2018 he was able to gain some status on the Korn Ferry (somewhere in there was when the circuit formerly known as the Web.com Tour suddenly became the Korn Ferry Tour).

   But Matthews’ journey hit a few potholes, mostly due to back issues. By the end of 2019, Matthews was back in South America playing on the PGA Tour Latinoamerica. It was there that an incident at the Argentina Open earned Matthews some notoriety for all the right reasons.

   Matthews was in a playoff for the title and had a putt to stay alive in the playoff. He missed the putt and appeared to be upset with some fan noise he felt might have distracted him. Told a few minutes later the noise came from a fan who had Down Syndrome, Matthews rushed back to the 18^th green, greeted the man and gave him an autographed glove.

   Matthews’ heartfelt response went viral, so much so that he was granted a sponsor’s exemption into the Arnold Palmer Invitational at Bay Hill early in 2020. Pretty sure it was Matthews’ first PGA Tour start as a professional.

   Matthews missed the cut at Bay Hill and not long after that, the world stopped with the onset of the coronavirus pandemic. There would be no Korn Ferry Qualifying School in 2020, no PGA Tour Latinoamerica until the end of the year. In both cases, the two tours’ 2021 schedule would be folded in with whatever was played in 2020 for a wraparound 2020-2021 season.

   And Matthews did what he’s always done. He put his head down and kept playing. In the second event after the PGA Tour Latinoamerica resumed in December of 2020, Matthews captured a victory in the Puerto Plata Open at the Playa Dorada Golf Course in Playa Plata, Dominican Republican. OK, not South America, but close and a second PGA Tour Latinoamerica victory.

   Last summer, Matthews earned another PGA Tour Latinoamerica victory in The Club at Weston Hills Open in Weston, Fla. When the long wraparound 2020-’21 PGA Tour Latinoamerica season was over, Matthews stood at the top of the tour’s Order of Merit.

   Winning the PGA Tour Latinoamerica's Order of Merit came with a really nice added benefit. Matthews was fully exempt for the 2022 Korn Ferry Tour. He was one step away from the PGA Tour.

   He was close two weeks ago when he finished in a tie for second place in The Panama Championship, the third event on the 2022 Korn Ferry Tour schedule.

   And so, there he was, back in South America again Sunday. In an up-and-down final round on the Country Club de Bogota’s Lagos Course, Matthews fell back to 1-under for the day with a bogey at the 15^th hole.

   But then came the kind of explosive burst that players in the Philadelphia region had become so familiar with when Matthews won the Philadelphia Open in 2013 at Waynesborough Country Club and again in 2015 at Philadelphia Cricket Club’s Wissahickon Course, an A.W. Tillinghast classic.

   Matthews bombed a drive on the par-4 16^th hole and stuck his short approach to a foot for a kick-in birdie. The approach into the par-4 17^th hole wasn’t nearly as precise, but his 20-foot birdie putt went right in the heart.

   Matthews only had a little cut 9-iron into the green at the par-5 finishing hole and he left himself just five feet for eagle. A video on the Korn Ferry Tour website shows a confident stroke and an emotional celebration by Matthews.

   “If PGA Tour Latinoamerica didn’t exist, I wouldn’t be here,” Matthews told the Korn Ferry Tour website. “It’s pretty amazing what’s culminated out of all that and where I am compared to when I first got here.”

   Home these days is Jupiter, Fla., where his fiancée, Danielle Maslany, is planning their September wedding. Matthews was effusive in his praise for the support he’s received from Maslany as he’s tried to climb the ranks of professional golf.

   But Matthews hasn’t forgotten where he grew up in the Scranton area, which is where he and Maslany will be married. Last summer Matthews put on a pro-am charity event at the Country Club of Scranton and raised $50,000 to start a scholarship fund to help local golfers with the cost of college.

   The first scholarship recipient was Billy Pabst Jr., the North Pocono senior who lost in a playoff to Downingtown West’s Nick Gross for the PIAA Class AAA Championship at the Heritage Hills Golf Resort in York County last fall. Pabst will join the Penn State program at the end of this summer.

   Anybody who watched Matthews play amateur golf during his days at Temple always had the feeling that if this guy can’t make it, who can?

   Matthews’ victory in the Astara Championship vaulted him to the top of the Korn Ferry Tour’s regular-season points standings. The top 25 finishers at the end of the regular season will graduate to the PGA Tour.

   Matthews, as always, is only focused on the next tournament, the LECOM Suncoast Classic, which tees off Thursday a little closer to home at Lakewood National Golf Club in Lakewood Ranch, Fla. near Sarasota on Florida’s West Coast.

   “In my opinion, I think I should be in contention and be winning golf tournaments all the time,” Matthews told the Korn Ferry Tour website. “My game feels great. My mental has been really, really good over the last few years. If we can continue on this path, I’m pretty excited to see what we can do.”

   All of which means that Matthews might be playing on the PGA Tour at this time next year. With memories of all those big moments in South America never far from his mind.