Professional golfer Jhonattan Vegas intervenes after Trump orders a large-scale strike in Venezuela

President Donald Trump ordered a “full-scale attack” on Venezuela to capture its leader and transport him to the United States, where his administration plans to put him on trial.

The US Army’s Delta Force, an elite special operations unit, led the operation to capture Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, a US official briefed on the matter told News. The operation has provoked reactions both in the political sphere and in sports figures with close ties to Venezuela.

Jhonattan Vegas, a Venezuelan golfer who competes on the PGA Tour, seemed to react to the events.

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“Long live Venezuela, DAMN EVERYTHING” (sic), Vegas wrote in X in a post translated from Spanish.

Vegas, 41, is ranked 85th in the world. He had a historic career in the 2025 PGA Championship, becoming the first Venezuelan to take the lead in one of the four major tournaments.

Vegas finished 8 under par after the first 36 holes, putting him atop the leaderboard at Quail Hollow Club in Charlotte, North Carolina, in May. He finally finished the major tied for fifth place.

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Vegas first became interested in golf when he was just two years old.

“As a kid, I would hit anything I could find. Rocks, broomsticks, everything,” he told reporters after the first round of last year’s PGA Championship. “I would grab anything I could swing and do it. I felt like I was a good athlete as a kid, that’s how things started.

“We grew up near a nine-hole golf course owned by the oil companies, we had access to a course and, coupled with my father’s love of the game, we put it together and started playing.”

Once he reached his teens, Vegas left Venezuela and moved to the U.S. He learned English and then took his golf talents to the Texas Longhorns.

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Vegas further cemented his name in history when he won the Bob Hope Classic in 2011, making him the first Venezuelan to win a PGA Tour-sponsored event. He also represented his native country twice at the Olympic Games.

On Saturday, Trump described Maduro as “heavily guarded” in a presidential palace that was “a heavily fortified military fortress in the heart of Caracas.” Maduro had almost made it to a safe room inside, Trump told reporters, although he “couldn’t close it.”

In an interview Saturday morning on “News & Friends Weekend,” Trump said U.S. forces were armed with “huge blowtorches,” which they would have used to cut through steel walls if Maduro had locked himself in the room.

The News contributed to this report.

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