He retires on Saturday. But first, an 18-hole sprint to the Olympic stage

SAINT-QUENTIN-EN-YVELINES, France — This Saturday, it will be over. Mariajo Uribe will tee off on the 18th hole, that will be it. In the final round, of the 2024 Olympics, and his career as a professional golfer. Another day, another 18 holes.

What started the week as a happy story – a 34-year-old golfing mother playing her last event as a professional – slowly turned into a moment of confirmation. Uribe will run in the penalty shootout on Saturday not only with 18 holes to play, but in an 18-hole race to the medal stand. He was hit twice outside of the playoffs, a thought that would have seemed laughable not long ago.

Uribe was born in Giron, Colombia, and still lives nearby, in Bucaramanga, a metropolitan area the size of Baltimore. He won the 2007 US Amateur in Indiana, went to school at UCLA and led a modest career on the LPGA Tour, amassing $2 million in career earnings. But unlike male golfers whose bodies and health allow them to play proper, competitive golf well into their 50s, that's not the case for women. Uribe was ready to call it a career at the age of 30, circling the Tokyo Games on his calendar.

“It was always in the Olympics,” he said. “The Olympics are a big thing at home.”

But then, “the COVID hit and I got pregnant and life happened.”

Uribe went 15 months between tournaments, and when he returned, his golf was slow. He missed 11 of his first 14 cuts and had zero top-25 finishes in his first 2.5 starts. years of competitions. He entered the Tokyo Games but finished 22 shots out of the field on a quiet golf course. Something didn't sit well with it. So he and his family decided to push it. They will extend his career to three full years of grinding and traveling and Facetiming from the road, all with the hope of representing Colombia in Paris 2024.

But by Christmas, 2023, Uribe was on the wrong side of the title.

So he started writing letters – the kind golf writers need – asking sponsors to be released from tournaments that would go on without him. He dropped down the ranks and started entering the arenas on the feeder tour – designed for up-and-coming players – where the only players who cover their costs are those who finish in the top five.

He says: “I was trying to score points wherever I could.

Finally, in early 2024, one of those letters was answered in the affirmative: The NSW Women's Open. That's NSW as in New South Wales. They said, it went down in Sydney, Australia – 14,000 miles from home. He bogeyed the 54th and final hole to win by one shot. The second victory of his entire career.

When the world rankings were released the next day, he jumped more than 250 places, securing his spot at the Olympics. “It's history after that,” Uribe said Friday, laughing as he said it all. He came last weekend and soaked it all in. He was there for the first few lines at the Stade de France when Noah Lyles pushed his chest to the finish line in the 100 meter race. She caught some swimming, synchronized swimming, and couldn't leave Paris without that Eiffel Tower beach volleyball photo. This is it, says the 196th ranked golfer in the world. He even left his boots at home and joked with his friend that he was going to buy him a “I just got fired” t-shirt.

It was all good and fun, until he shot 70 on Wednesday. He shot 70 again on Thursday. And then it was 14 under on Friday, as the leaders were coughing up bogeys, pushing that Colombian flag onto the leaderboard, tied for gold. At that moment, you can't help yourself. He had to think about it. Chances of getting out of your job by walking on a platform. Uribe knows it's not the Olympics for Colombia.

“I've always been proud of my country, but TV only comes when it's there this kind of tournament,” he said, “The regular LPGA events, maybe if you win, or second place they'll show you on TV. But other than that, people don't really know.”

A refrain we heard from some South American golfers this month. His country has experience with the Green Jacket and maybe the US Open, though everyone you know the Olympics. South American games are one thing. (Uribe won a medal there.) The Pan-Am Games are another. (Uribe won an award there.) But this is an entirely different beast. Uribe knows the message he is sending home, in the government's athletics funding program, saying, Hey, this game needs funding, too. He's been humbly posting it all week.

He reached into his pocket to find the red-yellow-and-blue socks he's rocking this week, Amazon paired with a smiley face. He had painted his FootJoy correctly. Her nails, too. No more yellow, blue and red space for him. But there are in the crowd. Each day this week we brought more Colombian flags to the golf course. He even pulled one out of the tee box on Friday, the only golfer to hold nylon around their body like a track star. Why not? It may not be the best thing to do, but the introduction to the 1st tee is wrong, he says. And Saturday is the last one. Time to accept it.

“I think it will be difficult tomorrow if that last putt falls,” he said. “No matter what happens, it's going to be an emotional day. But right now I feel calm and happy about it.”