For any athlete, participating in the Olympic Games is always emotional. Moreover, in the world of golf, representing your country and playing for your flag is not something that happens very often at a professional level. If you add to that the fact that the Olympic Games are the biggest sports competition, well, you have the perfect cocktail.
However, there is a golfer who is experiencing an even more special week, one of the most emotional of her career. Mariajo Uribe (-4) is not only participating in her third Games, but she is also playing her last event as a professional. Tomorrow on the 18th hole of Le Golf National, she will hang up her clubs forever at the highest level.
The Colombian is currently fourth in the standings after having handed in two cards of 70 strokes in the first two days of competition. Uribe is just one stroke behind Lydia Ko (-5) who would currently be the bronze medalist. The Games are very important to the Colombian and have always been the great dream of her career. In fact, she has expressed on some occasions that she would have already retired if it were not for this being an Olympic year.
In her two previous participations, she achieved a top 20 in Rio and in her second Games she finished in a modest fiftieth place. On a continental level, Uribe already knows what it is like to triumph playing for her country. She won a gold medal at the Pan American Games in 2015 and a silver medal at the South American Games in 2014.
Is there a better way to retire than with a medal around your neck? Probably not. In recent weeks, following comments from Collin Montgomerie, the debate about Tiger’s retirement was reopened. It has also been very present in the world of football with a Toni Kroos who has left at the top. Everyone should retire when they wish, but if she wins the medal, Mariajo would achieve her greatest success as a professional in her last tournament, and that’s saying something considering her career started with a bang. At just 17 years old, she won the US Women’s Amateur, which is being held this very week. A year later, still as an amateur, she made the top 10 of the US Open and was awarded the distinction of best amateur of the tournament.
Latin American golf was rubbing its hands at the possibility of having a great champion in its ranks. The reality is that expectations have not been met. In 2011 she won an exhibition tournament of the LPGA promoting the Rio Games, but it did not award world ranking points. It was not until this very season, at 34 years old and in her last months of her career, that the Colombian won her first victory as a professional. It was in Australia in the first tournament of her last season. In between, in these 16 years as a professional, she barely managed to add another top 10 in a Major.
Mariajo can now retire with the taste of victory on her lips, but a medal would be something historic for her, for Colombia, and for Latin golf. It would be the first medal in history for the region.
It’s never easy to leave elite sport, but… Will Uribe manage to make the big hit in her last tournament as a professional? Today, from 12:07 Mariajo is living the penultimate chapter of her professional career.
