Fátima was only missing a trip to Fátima after visiting eight doctors between traumatologists and neurologists and finally finding the cause of the subtle discomfort in her right arm that was driving her up the wall. She was suffering from a combined compression of the median and radial nerves at the elbow level, which caused her to lose strength in her right hand while playing and, of course, she lost control over the ball with each stroke. “I was going crazy because I had something but almost imperceptible since the beginning of 2022; I don’t like excuses and in my head if something hurts, there’s an injury and if nothing hurts, there isn’t, but I had something”, recalls Fátima Fernández Cano (Santiago de Compostela, 23/10/95), happily recovered after undergoing surgery in October and happily holding a card from the Ladies European Tour (LET) after passing the pre-qualification and subsequently the Final in Morocco, where she finished in a commendable eighth position after more than a year off, on the dry dock, as in May she decided to stop to find and then solve her joint ailment.
“I am very happy because it has been very hard. I came to think that I would have to retire. Doctor Villamor told me to stop for three months, in August they gave me infiltrations and they didn’t work, and I was lucky because he sent me to Jordi Palau, an expert in arm nerves, he recommended me to have surgery and that reassured me. I did it in October, I asked him if I could play the LET School in December and he told me that yes, but he didn’t know if I could train before. And he was right. I took the flight from Birmingham (Alabama), where I live, on a Sunday to come to Morocco and until the previous Thursday I had not played three days in a row 18 holes. I saw that the arm was holding up and I came to the School”, the Galician woman tells.
It was curious because she passed the first phase by the skin of her teeth; in fact, she was packing to come to Spain because she finished her third round with a bogey, ended at par and went to eat with the cut at -1. She was convinced that she wouldn’t pass, but in the last game of the day the bar went back to par and she unpacked to stay 10 more days in Morocco to face the Final, four days that would be five if she passed the cut of 65 and tied. She achieved it and also celebrated getting into the top 20 to secure her first full card in the LET after competing in United States, in the Epson and in the LPGA, since she left the University of Troy (Alabama). Six months without touching a club and getting the European Circuit card after eight rounds (three and five) is a kind of miracle of Fátima… Fernández Cano.
“Challenge achieved, yes, and even more so because I didn’t go with many expectations. I am happy more than anything for having returned to play and for having been able to finish the two weeks of competition, which in the end was the objective, to see how I was physically”, says Fátima, who has had a lot of consistency these two weeks, even in the 76 with which she opened the pre-qualification: “I played well, it was a +4 without mess because I took many streets and many greens, but the putts didn’t go in; the rest of the days was a bit more of the same but I was better putting”, explains Fernández Cano, also proud because the arm has not bothered her, “it has only been a little bit loaded but it is normal because I practically had six months without doing anything. I still don’t have all the strength back in my hand, but the good thing is that it doesn’t suddenly go away, before it went from having all the strength to suddenly almost nothing and that drove me a bit crazy, the lack of consistency because in the impact my hand opened and now it hasn’t happened. I have been able to maintain the same grip pressure basically throughout the course. And that gives me a lot more confidence and a lot more control over the clubface”, she assures.
She has to organise her schedule and her life because she doesn’t plan to leave Birmingham or the exceptional Shoal Creek course, where they treat her wonderfully and have taken great care of her. In fact, at the beginning of January she returns for a month to do the preseason and then she will start the LET in Kenya and then go to Morocco waiting to qualify for the Aramco in Florida and just after competing in the Epson tournaments that are held on the east coast peninsula of the United States. “My idea is to combine the LET with the Epson, where I can play 12 tournaments due to the medical exemption”, says the woman from Santiago, whose performance in the second category of the American Circuit has been brilliant after finishing second in the tour two years in a row (2020 and 2021) and winning a couple of tournaments.
Her wish, of course, is to return to the LPGA (“it’s very complicated but if I did it twice, I can do it a third time”) through the Epson or even the LET, as it is rumoured that the European Circuit will distribute several places at the end of the year to go to the American Tour. In any case, she plans to compete more in Spain because “I love playing here and the support of the people”, and because as a good Galician she misses the land.
She didn’t promise to do the Camino de Santiago if she got the LET card (“for that what I lack is time, I have plenty of desire and no promise is needed”, she jokes) and to the Three Wise Men “I have little to ask for 2024 apart from health; I have discovered that I am content with little and if my arm holds up and I am healthy, I hope to continue enjoying golf, which is what I have been doing these two weeks, I missed it a lot. I ask them to be able to continue playing”.
For now she has returned home for Christmas with a card under her arm that will allow her to compete in the Ladies European Tour and she will be able to delight in her brother’s new album, the singer-songwriter Luis Fercán, which comes out in February. Lost Postcards is the title. Letters and postcards, all are welcome in 2024 for the Fernández Cano family.
