As in golf, life sometimes smiles at you with good shots and sometimes it slaps you with disastrous ones. Fortunately, the goddess Fortune is usually kind to María Parra, although it is also true that on more than one occasion she has been left in the lurch. Like last December when, because of a bureaucrat at the U.S. Embassy in Spain, she did not get a visa in time to enter the United States and missed her chance to revalidate her card to enroll again in the American Women’s Tour, the LPGA Tour. Or when, a year earlier, her clubs did not arrive on the flight from Spain the first time she faced the Qualifying School of that circuit. Fortunately, Maria was able to overcome in an outstanding way the unexpected trance, which coincided with her eighteenth birthday, and became the only player to achieve the same season the card to play, in 2017, in the American and European professional circuits.
Having been unable to access the PGA Tour School due to the visa incident, the Cadiz native from Guadiaro, who in 2016 was ranked number two in the world amateur ranking, is this year enrolled in the Symetra Tour, the second circuit in the U.S. women’s golf ladder. If the results are favorable to her this season, she will be able to return to the PGA Tour in 2019.
In one of the breaks in her competitive calendar, at the end of May, Maria returned home for a few days to be with family and friends, although she did not neglect her preparation and, with the help of her coach Juan Antonio Martin, she regularly went to ‘her’ Real Club de Golf Sotogrande.
Always with a smile on her face, the 20-year-old commented on her experience on the Symetra Tour. “It’s a very good Tour,” she says, “because it gives you the chance to return to the LPGA again and the truth is that I’m quite happy because lately I’ve been playing very well and that gives me confidence.”
She comments that there is a high level of play in the circuit because many of its members are players who, like her, did not revalidate the LPGA Tour card they had the previous season. “Tournaments are won with -15, with -20, which gives an idea of the level,” she adds.
THE LPGA TOUR CARD
The top ten of the Symetra Tour ranking at the end of the season will get the card to play the following year in the world’s top division of golf, the LPGA Tour. Although she has not achieved good results so far, she says she feels confident that she can be in that coveted top-10. “Yes, of course, we’ve had six tournaments, but there are still at least fifteen to go, and with the confidence I have now in my game I see myself capable of achieving it.”
Regarding her life in the United States, she says that she gets along very well with her compatriots in Symetra, that she usually travels to tournaments with Nuria Iturrios and that they usually find accommodation in houses provided by the members of the course where the tournament takes place – “they help us a lot”- or they rent online through Airbnb. The high cost of travel, accommodation and meals during the season can be borne by María thanks to her sponsors, among which are the Real Club de Golf Sotogrande, Berenberg Bank, Fertiveria, JME Venture Capital and Callaway.
Referring to the RCG Sotogrande, with which he began his sporting relationship eight years ago, the Cadiz player says “for me it is the best club there is and it is a great privilege that allow me to train here.
When it comes to highlighting some aspect of the course, she comments that “I really couldn’t tell you because everything is very good: it’s amazing”. She also praises the par 3 course, which is being remodeled and which for her is “a perfect place for training”.
The course at Real Club de Golf Sotogrande bears many similarities to those in the United States where Maria has been competing since last year. “It reminds me of them especially because it is a difficult course, long, with a variety of fairways, with some wide and some narrow, the grass… training here is very good to play on the fields there. This is one of the best fields I’ve ever played on”.
FAMILY SUPPORT
Maria, born December 4, 1997, began to carve out her golfing future when she was just 6 years old, when she asked her little brother, who was six years older and played golf in La Cañada, to let her try to see what golf was all about. He took a club and on his first attempt he hit the ball more or less well. She got the bug and her grandfather, who was working at the RCG Sotogrande for 40 years but did not play golf, began to take her daily to La Cañada. The little brat stood out immediately and began to win championships in Andalusia and Spain. She won a qualifying tournament of The Sotogrande International Golf Academy (SIGA), was awarded a scholarship and came under their sporting ‘jurisdiction’.
In 2013 he moved to the capital of Spain to join the Blume National School of Golf, a high performance sports center. She stayed there for two years. She would later go on to become the number 2 ameteur in the world and would soon after become a professional.
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