There was a surprise in the golfing world this week with the news that Mito Pereira has retired at the age of 30.
Pereira announced his plans to return to Chile after being relegated from LIV Golf at the end of the 2025 season.
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Obviously, he had a difficult year on LIV. But the announcement comes less than four years since Pereira nearly won the PGA Championship. He had a three-shot lead going into the final round, while he still led by one on the 72nd hole.
Unfortunately, a double bogey saw Pereira finish in a tie for third.
The major champion who decided to walk away from the PGA Tour at 37
It is quite rare in the men’s game for players to retire before the age of 40. That list of players gets significantly smaller when you look at major champions.
One of those who decided to walk away from the game at the highest level at an extremely young age is Bill Rogers.
Rogers won the 1981 Open Championship at Royal St George’s. Within seven years, he would decide to leave the PGA Tour and become a director of golf at San Antonio Golf Club.
Incredibly, the Texan very nearly did not hit a single shot at that year’s event.
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Rogers was actually only making his second appearance in The Open that year. But as he told Golf Digest in 2011, he was almost disqualified ahead of the opening round.
He was preparing on the putting green while chatting away, thinking his tee time was 8:44 am. It turned out that he was actually off at 8:22 am – only learning of his error one minute earlier.
Thankfully, after a mad dash, Rogers was able to keep himself in the tournament. And he went on to win by four shots from Bernhard Langer.
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He actually ended the year with seven wins worldwide. No one won more on the PGA Tour in 1981 than Rogers, with four victories.
Unfortunately, he would win just once more on the PGA Tour. Meanwhile, there were just two more top 10s in the majors.
He missed the cut in 10 of his final 13 appearances in the four biggest events of the year. He also withdrew from the 1985 US Open.
Why Bill Rogers called time on his playing career
Rogers stepped away from playing regularly on the PGA Tour in 1988.
Speaking on Fairways of Life with Matt Adams in 2024, Rogers explained why he had to get away from being a tour professional.
“I’d become what I call soul-sick. And you get to a place where to actually feel better about yourself, [you] hope that others don’t do as well. And that is an awfully dark place. That’s what I was, all self-inflicted, certainly. I’d become very complacent with my work ethic,” he said.
“I was all in love with the almighty dollar and went to every corner of the globe chasing it. And all these factors built into a heart-sick position that frankly I certainly didn’t like. I wasn’t willing to make the effort and do what it took to maintain a position that it requires to play a high level on the PGA Tour.”
Rogers is far from the only player to lose the passion for the game in that way. Pereira himself gave up playing golf for two years as a teenager.
Meanwhile, Victor Dubuisson appeared to have a remarkable amount of talent, appearing in the Ryder Cup in 2014. However, he decided to stop playing professionally at 33.
It just shows that while it takes incredible dedication to reach the top, it also takes incredible dedication to stay there.
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