María José Marín won at Augusta and, as she explained afterwards, she painted a portrait of who she is, where she comes from and how she understands golf. The Colombian spoke about patience, her father, Colombia, Arkansas, her firefighter caddie and a fundamental principle: “dream big”.
The round that crowned her at the ANWA, she said, was a rollercoaster. “I didn’t start that solid”, she admitted. She kept looking at the leaderboard, saw movement behind her and forced herself not to lose her composure. “I reminded myself that I had to keep being very, very patient because anything can happen here”. When she holed the final putt, she summed it up like this: “I did it. All my hard work has paid off and I am extremely proud of myself”.
She also explained where she felt she had to hang on to the tournament with her fingernails and teeth. “The hardest decision I had to make was on the 10th hole”, she said. She hadn’t struck her second shot well, nor the third, and seeing “everything that was happening behind” her she told herself: “I have to do something, I don’t know how, but I have to do something”. There one of the keys to her victory emerged: “Getting out of Amen Corner with three pars was the key”. What putts she holed on holes 10, 12 and 14.
In that sequence she saw signs. She herself called them that. “One was the ball staying on that little mound on 12. I had never seen a ball stay there”, she said. She interpreted it in her own way: “I think it was God holding the ball: ‘Don’t move. This is happening for a reason’”. Then came the 13th, where she went off script. She had planned to play safe, but she thought she had to put her foot down. “I told Darren: I’m going for it. It’s now or never”. She hit it with the hybrid and nailed it. One more step.
That Darren is Darren Woo, her caddie this week, a local Augusta firefighter. Marín pointed to him flatly as a key piece. “He was my biggest support throughout the week and one of the keys to the victory”, she said. Whenever a bad shot came, his voice was there: “Breathe, calm down, you will get it out, it’s okay, give yourself a chance”. María José repeated the idea of calm several times. And she made clear that Darren was the one who helped her hold it together when the tournament tightened. Besides being a firefighter, Woo works as a local caddie at various Augusta courses.
Her father also appears in that story, almost from the very beginning. “My dad is the one who brought me to the sport, who instilled in me the love of the sport and without him I wouldn’t be sitting here today”, she explained. She then recounted another very revealing scene: this year her father decided not to carry her bag. “He told me: you need someone who knows how to handle a tournament at this level”. Marín described it as “one of the nicest decisions” he could make, precisely because of how selfless it was. “I’ll be there supporting you”, he told her. Zero selfishness.
When they asked her about her background and the scope of the victory, she didn’t hide it. “Of course this is a victory for my country and I feel extremely proud to represent it”. She also added another personal nuance: “I am also half Mexican, so I proudly represent Mexico deep in my heart”. To the girls of Colombia and Latin America she left a message: “Dream big. Never give up on your dreams”.
That message connects with her own story. “To nine-year-old María José I would say thank you for never giving up”, she said. She talked about tough moments, falls and a constant: “I’ve always found a way to get up and to trust my process”. And she extended that idea to anyone starting out: “Never stop dreaming, always enjoy what you do. Today, honestly, I enjoyed the whole round, I even enjoyed the bogeys, because it’s a privilege to be here”.
Part of that path runs through Arkansas, a university with a very marked footprint in Latin American golf. Marín explained it naturally. “The University of Arkansas has had a huge influence in Latin America and has had many successful players”. She felt her coaches very close all week, spoke of that almost family bond and mencionó a María Fassi como una inspiración concreta. “Her final round totally inspired me to be able to one day win or be in the final group here at Augusta”.
Her words also outline what she could be in the future. Not because she made a grandiose promise, but because of how she places this victory in her career. “This will only help to boost my confidence”, she said. Whenever she has a bad moment, she will be able to remember that she was capable of winning at Augusta, of bearing all that pressure. “Use it to my advantage to keep working hard and never give up”. And she added another goal she repeated several times: “Inspiring younger generations will always be my main aim”.
This victory doesn’t seem to change her course, rather it reinforces her path. “It does change my objectives a little”, admitted the reigning NCAA champion, “but I’m still on the same path of finishing my final year at Arkansas and taking in as much experience as possible”. Augusta, in fact, does not place it as a final point, but as another push.
At the end, when they asked her for one word to sum up what she felt, she was simple and direct. “Extreme happiness”, she replied. And she returned to the same place: the pride for all the work and for having known how to handle the pressure. Then she left a phrase that explains quite well how she sees this triumph and the stage where she achieved it: “This is the temple of golf”.
