“From Mentor To Teammate” …. Garcia Praises Golf’s Newest Pro Champion

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Sergio Garcia has celebrated fellow Spaniard’s Josele Ballester stunning PIF Saudi International success posting  brilliant Instagram images of the duo taken 14-years apart of he and golf’s newest champion

Ballester, 22 is Spain’s newest golfing sensation winning a maiden pro career title after his closing 65 for a 22-under tally to win by three shots over American Careb Surratt who was relegated into second place for a second year running.

Surratt had led for three rounds ahead of a closing 69 and not helped in starting day four with back-to-back bogeys for an eventual 19-under tally.

Though there was no denying Ballester.

“First of all, thank you so much. I’m super happy,” said Ballester.

“It’s been everything, right? Like at the end of the day, being a young boy dreaming about this moment, winning your first professional career. This is why I worked so hard every day. It’s been really cool, to finally get this done. It’s going to make me keep working even harder to accomplish all the things I have.

“But right now I’m really happy and thankful for all the people that have been there supporting me.

“It’s been great these past few months. It’s been a lot of learning. When I joined LIV, I was not playing great, and it was a learning process. I had to become better. It’s been really cool to see that in this brief time I’ve gotten so much better and that I can compete at the highest level with the best players in the world.”

After a hugely impressive amateur career, hightlighted with wins in the 2022 Spanish Amateur, 2023 European Amateur and the 2024 US Amateur Ballester turned professional in June this year at the Virginia LIV Golf.

Ballester contested the closing six LIV events and not only impressing his Fireball GC captain Garcia but also many in the golf world with a seventh and second place finishes in the back-to-back LIV events in London and Chicago.

He ended his maiden LIV season with a creditable 36th place standing among his now 62 colleagues while also banking a cool $2,902,381 in prizemoney.

Ballester had missed the cut as an amateur in April’s Masters, an event where he found himself in hot water when caught peeing into Rae’s Creek while in his second event as a pro, he sat out the weekend rounds at the US Open.

He contested the DP World Tour’s BMW International Open in Munich in July and more-recently his own Espania Open while three weeks ago he was T14th in the Hong Kong Open ahead of venturing to Saudi Arabia.

It has been written Ballester seemed destined to be the successor to Sergio García, whom he first met back over 15-years ago as he was being trained with his father, Víctor García.

Masters champ Sergio Garcia with then 14-year-old Josele Ballester in 2011 and now 22-year-old and PIF Saudi International champion. Image @FireballsGC

There’s this snap of the duo posted on @FireballsGC X account with the message: From mentee to teammate. Of course, mantee meaning: “A person who is advised, trained, or counselled by a mentor.”

“I have been lucky enough to be able to play a lot with Sergio García, it is a privilege”, he said.

Josele started playing golf when he was just three years old. He started “in the Costa del Azahar field, which was just two minutes from home” and soon made the leap “to Sergio García’s Mediterranean field.”

There was no denying Ballester victory today in the Sauda capital, earning the cool $1 million dollar top prize purse and now heading into 2026 in a his first full pro season with the golf world at his feet.



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