The Olympic Golfer Making Her Final Professional Appearance This Week
After a 15-year professional career, LPGA Tour pro Mariajo Uribe makes her final start at the Olympics, where she will play for Colombia
For the 60 players in the women’s Olympics golf tournament, their appearances at Le Golf National as they represent their countries are likely to be a huge source of pride.
However, for one player, the four days of strokeplay action in pursuit of one of the three medals will surely be even more memorable. That’s because for Colombian Mariajo Uribe, it will be her final event as a professional.
Uribe, who also appeared at the 2016 Rio Olympics and the 2020 edition in Tokyo, had been hoping she could end her professional career in Paris as early as March, as she revealed during the Women’s NSW Open on the WPGA Tour Australasia.
"This is my last year," she explained. "I am retiring after the Paris Olympics. I just need to make points. This week I was not going to get in the LPGA, so I might as well come here and play, make sure I get a few tournaments in. I love coming to Australia, so it’s nice to come, play some good golf.”
She won that event - the second victory of her professional career - which helped her to climb high enough in the world rankings to qualify as the only Colombian. As a result, she has her wish to make the Paris Olympics her swansong after a professional career that began in 2009, one year after she finished T10 at the US Women’s Open as an amateur.
By the end of her first year as a professional, Uribe had qualified for both the LET and LPGA Tour, with her maiden win coming in unofficial LPGA Tour event the HSBC Brazil Cup in 2011.
Another highlight in a Major came with a T10 at the 2014 Evian Championship, while further achievements included T7 at the 2010 LPGA Tour Championship, gold medals in the individual and team events at the 2015 Pan American Games and T7 at the 2018 Bank of Hope Founders Cup. She also finished T19 at the 2016 Olympics before achieving T50 in Tokyo.
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Could there be one final honor on one of the greatest stages of all? Anything is possible, although, regardless of the outcome, for Uribe, the four rounds she will get to savor this week will surely live with her long into her retirement.
Mike has over 25 years of experience in journalism, including writing on a range of sports throughout that time, such as golf, football and cricket. Now a freelance staff writer for Golf Monthly, he is dedicated to covering the game's most newsworthy stories.
He has written hundreds of articles on the game, from features offering insights into how members of the public can play some of the world's most revered courses, to breaking news stories affecting everything from the PGA Tour and LIV Golf to developmental Tours and the amateur game.
Mike grew up in East Yorkshire and began his career in journalism in 1997. He then moved to London in 2003 as his career flourished, and nowadays resides in New Brunswick, Canada, where he and his wife raise their young family less than a mile from his local course.
Kevin Cook’s acclaimed 2007 biography, Tommy’s Honour, about golf’s founding father and son, remains one of his all-time favourite sports books.
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