She’s retiring Saturday. However first, an 18-hole dash to the Olympic podium

SAINT-QUENTIN-EN-YVELINES, France — This time Saturday, it’ll all be over. Mariajo Uribe will scoop her ball out of the 18th gap, and that’ll be it. For the ultimate spherical, for the 2024 Olympics, and for her professional golf profession. Another day, 18 extra holes. 

What started the week as a cute story — the 34-year-old golf mother taking part in her last occasion as a professional — has slowly morphed into an authorized second. Uribe will tee off within the penultimate group Saturday not simply with 18 holes to play, however in an 18-hole dash to the medal stand. She’s two pictures exterior of a playoff for bronze, a thought that may have appeared ridiculous not too way back. 

Uribe was born in Giron, Colombia, and nonetheless lives close by, in Bucaramanga, a metro space the scale of Baltimore. She received the U.S. Newbie in 2007, in Indiana, went to highschool at UCLA after which led a modest profession on the LPGA Tour, amassing $2 million in profession earnings. However not like male golfers whose our bodies and lives permit them to play related, aggressive golf into their 50s, that isn’t alway the case on the ladies’s facet. Uribe was able to name it a profession at 30, circling the Tokyo Video games on her calendar.

“It was all the time on the Olympics,” she stated. “The Olympics are such a giant deal again residence.”

However then, “COVID hit and I bought pregnant and life occurred.”

Uribe went 15 months between tournaments, and when she got here again, her golf was tardy. She missed 11 of her first 14 cuts and had zero top-25 finishes in her first 2.5 years of tournaments. She competed in these Tokyo video games however completed 22 pictures exterior the rostrum at a silent golf course. One thing about it didn’t sit proper. So she and her household determined to push it. They’d lengthen her profession a full three years’ value of grinding and touring and Facetiming from the street, all with the hope of signify Colombia in Paris 2024.

However at Christmas time, 2023, Uribe was on the mistaken facet of qualification.

So she began writing letters — the type golfers-in-need write — requesting sponsor exemptions into tournaments that may in any other case keep on with out her. She dropped down a stage and commenced getting into fields on the feeder excursions — designed for up-and-coming gamers — the place the one gamers masking their bills are those that end within the high 5.

“I used to be simply making an attempt to get factors wherever I may,” she says.

Lastly, in early 2024, a type of letters was answered within the affirmative: The NSW Ladies’s Open. That’s NSW as in New South Wales. Come on down, they stated, to Sydney, Australia — 14,000 miles from residence. She birdied the 54th and last gap for a one-shot victory. The second victory of her whole profession. 

When the world rankings had been launched the subsequent day, she jumped up greater than 250 spots, guaranteeing her place within the Olympics. “It’s been historical past after that,” Uribe stated Friday, with a smile that claims all of it. She arrived final weekend and soaked all of it up. She was there within the first few rows at Stade de France when Noah Lyles pushed his chest throughout the end line within the 100-meter sprint. She caught among the swimming, the synchronized swimming, and couldn’t go away Paris with out that Eiffel Tower seashore volleyball pic. That is it, says the 196th-ranked golfer on the earth. She even left her restoration boots at residence and has joked along with her caddie that she would purchase him an “I simply bought fired” T-shirt.

All of it was cute and humorous, proper till the second she shot 70 on Wednesday. After which shot 70 once more Thursday. After which was three-under by means of 14 on Friday, because the leaders had been coughing up bogeys, pushing that Colombian flag up the leaderboard, tied for gold. At that time, you may’t assist your self. She had to consider it. The potential of strolling off your profession by strolling onto the rostrum. Uribe is aware of it hasn’t been a banner Olympics for Colombia. 

“I’ve all the time felt so pleased with my nation, however the TV solely comes when it’s this sort of event,” she stated, “Regular LPGA occasions, perhaps in the event you win, or perhaps second place they present you on TV. However aside from that, individuals don’t actually know.”

It’s a chorus we’ve heard from her fellow South American golfers this month. Their homelands are type of conscious of the Inexperienced Jacket and perhaps the U.S. Open, however everybody is aware of the Olympics. The South American Video games are one factor. (Uribe has medaled there.) The Pan-Am Video games are one other. (Uribe has medaled there.) However that is a wholly totally different beast. Uribe is aware of the message she’s sending again residence, to the federal government athletics subsidy program, saying, Hey, this sport deserves funding, too. She’s been sending it subliminally all week. 

She dug into her personal pockets for the yellow-red-and-blue socks she’s rocking this week, an Amazon discover with a smiley-faced stitched in. She had her FootJoy’s painted appropriately. Her fingernails, too. There isn’t house for any extra yellow, blue and crimson on her. However there may be within the crowd. Every day this week has introduced increasingly Colombian flags to the golf course. She even introduced one out onto the first tee field Friday, the one golfer to carry nylon as much as their physique like a monitor star. Why not? It may not be the golfiest factor to do, however the 1st tee introduction is awkward, she says. And Saturday’s her final one. Time to embrace it.

“I feel it’s going to be a bit of laborious tomorrow when that final putt falls,” she stated. “It doesn’t matter what occurs, it’s going to be an emotional day. However proper now I really feel calm and excited for it.”