Jose Luis Ballester has signed a major career contract just two months after going viral at Augusta National.
The reigning US Amateur has signed a multi-year deal with the Saudi-backed LIV Golf circuit, forfeiting his shot at making it on the PGA Tour.
The 21-year-old will join fellow Spaniard Sergio Garcia’s Fireballs team, joining Abraham Ancer and David Puig.
He is set to make his professional debut this week at LIV Golf’s Virginia event at Robert Trent Jones Golf Club outside Washington, D.C.
‘We are very excited about Josele joining the team,’ Garcia said in a statement. ‘Personally, I have known him since he could pick up a golf club and he has worked with my father as his coach throughout his golf career.’
Ballester just wrapped up his senior season at Arizona State – the alma mater of LIV Golf stars Phil Mickelson and Jon Rahm.
Jose Luis Ballester has signed a multi-year contract with LIV Golf after going viral
The 21-year-old will join fellow Spaniard Sergio Garcia’s Fireballs team on the circuit
Ballester, pictured with girlfriend Hayden James, made headlines at The Master
He finished third in the PGA Tour University standings, which earned him full status on the Korn Ferry Tour, the PGA Tour’s top developmental circuit.
However, according to Golf Channel, Ballester declined the offer, instead opting to snub the Tour in favor of its rival breakaway.
LIV Golf players have been banned from the PGA Tour for their defections as the truce negotiations between the two circuits drag on.
The PGA Tour rejected a $1.5 billion reunification offer from the Saudi Public Investment Fund – which bankrolls the LIV breakaway – in April.
Despite missing the cut, Ballester made headlines at The Masters in April when he left the patrons of the hallowed Augusta National stunned.
He stirred controversy during the first round when, playing alongside world No 1 Scottie Scheffler, he sported a cap with ‘Sun Devils’ written upside down on the front. An apparent fashion faux pas among golf’s traditionalists.
He truly horrified Augusta’s most orthodox patrons when he took relief of a very different kind at one of the course’s most famous landmarks.
Ballester urinated into Rae’s Creek at the 13th at the risk of facing punishment from the powers that be at the church of golf.
Ballester and Garcia have known each other for years with the latter acting as a mentor
The US Amateur champion ruffled feathers when he urinated in Rae’s Creek at Augusta
Fans flocked to his girlfriend’s Instagram her boyfriend shot to fame at The Masters
‘I completely forgot that we had those restrooms to the left of the tee box,’ an unrepentant Ballester explained after he was caught in the act.
‘I really needed to pee. I didn’t really know where to go…I’m like, I’m just going to sneak here in the river and probably people would not see me that much, and then they clapped for me.’
However, he appeared to have avoided the wrath of the Augusta officials over his unscheduled pit stop when he was permitted to return to tee it up for the second round alongside Scheffler and Justin Thomas.
Ballester defeated Noah Kent 2 up in the 36-hole U.S. Amateur final at Hazeltine last August. Although he is turning professional, he keeps his spot in next week’s U.S. Open at Oakmont as the reigning champion of the USGA’s top amateur event.
Ballester is the son of two Spanish Olympians with his mother Sonia Barrio winning a gold medal in field hockey at the 1992 Barcelona games.
Meanwhile, his father, Jose Luis Ballester Sr., was an Olympic swimmer, who also competed at the University of Florida.
Ballester, who hails from Castellón, Spain, has one sister, Julia, who is also a collegiate golfer as a sophomore at Kansas State.
