“A lot of my happiness these days comes from Atleti, it’s pure inspiration! And of course nine months ago when my son Álvaro was born, which was the best moment of my life, and if all goes as planned, he’ll have a baby brother in two months”. That’s been what’s kept him going throughout a long, frustrating season professionally, in which he progressively continued to move down, shot by shot, until he had to practically start from zero. “It’s like starting all over again, reinventing the swing… it all goes back to 2011, when I won my last tournament here in Dubai, where I live now; I made it to the top forty in the world and I followed the trends at the time. I had a really aggressive swing and I wanted to make a change like Luke Donald, a bit more consistent and I pushed Pepín Rivero (his trainer at the time) to do it, who was not in favor of it, but it was my decision. That’s where the downward spiral started. Things started not to go well, I lost my touch, happiness, confidence, and faith, a little bit of everything. At the end of 2012 I got hand surgery and I lost the naturalness in my swing. Things weren’t going well and, I’m really grateful to Pepín for all his support throughout all those years, but I decided to change coaches, to Adam Scott, which turned out to be the end of me, the last straw.”
The bad times, evidently, don’t come out of nowhere, and what seemed like the ideal place to make a life in Portugal even became a difficult routine to stomach: “We were very lonely, and that makes things tough. The days were always the same, from home to the course where nothing was going right, from there to the gym which isn’t my passion, rather an obligation, and from there back home, day in and day out. I’m lucky that I had María by my side who is pure happiness.” And that’s why they decided to move to Dubai, where Rafa Cabrera Bello is their neighbor.
The change in living situation was much more than a change of country: “when I lost the European Tour card last year I realized many things, and I decided that I had to get my game and my confidence back as soon as possible. I turned to Hernán Rey, professional golfer who is now a coach and we’re working together, the only thing is that he lives in Orlando. I was just there for two weeks, working with him and visiting Gonzálo Fernández Castaño and Alicia Carriles, and it was a nice break, and now I’m back with my batteries fully charged and ready to start the Turkish Airlines Challenge next week”.
“This is the first Challenge tournament I’ve played; I’ve played in five European Tour tournaments by invitation and I thought there would be more, but surprisingly they never came, so this year I’m going to focus on the Challenge Tour“.
And thus marks the beginning of a new era: “With Hernán we’re working on becoming conscious of what happened in the past, recovering the swing from before, but in order to do so I have to break the pattern I’ve fallen into, and that’s hard. The change won’t happen just by hitting the ball well; there’s much more to it than that.”
Looking back he assures that “There were some ugly, tough years. And it’s not that I gave up at any point in time, I continued to work but instead of moving forward, I only went backwards. I admit that the best moment of my life (my son being born) was overshadowed by my bitter, dark state. Since golf wasn’t going well, it affected all other aspects of my life also. But that was one chapter of my life and I hope to look back and laugh at the tough times of the past very soon. I’m now 34 years old, more responsibilities, and my priorities have changed. I’m so lucky to have María, who has a wonderful personality, and it’s just now that I’m starting to believe I can turn things around”.
“Now I can start to analyze how the good years went. It’s when you begin to realize some things that you didn’t before. I was lucky enough to come across some amazing people on my journey in order to make it to the top quickly, Pepín Rivero, Philip Expósito (my manager), the results came and I took home six wins in five years on the Tour, and went head to head with the best in the world. And during that time instead of feeling grateful for what I had, I wanted what I didn’t have”.
“Now I see it from another perspective. When you’ve been on top and then you come back down, you learn a lot. Shot by shot. Personally, I feel very lucky to have such a wonderful person by my side, a happy, healthy son, and parents and siblings who are good, what else could I ask for?”
“In eleven years on the European Tour, it’s the first time I’ve lost the card and I honestly thought I would get more invitations, but when I look at things from a different perspective, I realize that the image I had of myself that I liked so much, smiling, friendly, now seems to have been forgotten. Everyone looks out for themselves, and for the European Tour right now, the decision is not to invite Álvaro Quirós, but it’s okay”.
As far as the sponsors, they also seem to have forgotten about him “except Callaway and Puma, who have been with me since the start and I’ll be finishing with them this year, and I hope everything goes well. But I’m not worried at this point in time about the sponsors; I’m lucky enough to come from a humble family and I’ve never been driven by money. When things were going well, I never chose the tournaments based on money, but rather by schedule and availability. Whether or not they come will be based on how well I play”.
And thus he’s starting the Challenge with a fresh, positive attitude, because as Atleti says ‘If I learned anything from you, it’s to hold your head up even higher in the face of defeat than in victory’, and that’s just how he affirms that “now I’m closer to going back to my roots and to building something. I’m really excited to go to Turkey on Monday and to compete again. I played in the Challenge at the beginning of my career, just one year. Going back isn’t hard because of the fact that it’s supposedly an inferior tour, Atleti also went down to second division and look at them now! But rather, knowing what I’m capable of and the potential and quality I’ve been known to have, and now I’m starting from scratch, but really excited. I don’t want to do big things at the moment. I just want to enjoy golf again and I know the results will follow.
Because Álvaro Quirós, just like his beloved Atleti, is passion, happiness and suffering, and he never loses faith.
