All roads to the LPGA Tour are different. However, few – if any – are quite as different from the norm as Paz Echeverria.
The 29-year-old Chilean is in her third year on the Tour didn’t realize she wanted to play on Tour until she graduated college. She grew up in a country with only 50 golf courses. Her parents had picked up the game later in life and started bringing her to the course with them when she was five. There weren’t really grand visions of the game growing up, though. She rarely watched the game on TV and bypassed college golf in the States to stay home and go to the university in Chile, where a college degree path is five years not four. She did take a semester off in college to play golf, but the sport was hardly her priority during her years getting her degree in business.
“During all that time, I just played the minimum to keep my level and to play for Chile in World Ams and that stuff, but I didn’t practice much,” Echeverria said.
That all changed in 2009 when Echeverria took a trip that changed her thinking about the game and its future place in her life.
“It was funny because I did a backpack trip with friends in 2009, and then I realized I really like traveling. That was for three months in Asia and Australia. After that I still had one semester left in college and I finished it and I decided to turn pro because I didn’t want to question myself in a couple of years - what would have happened if I had played or something,” Echeverria said. “I had my degree so I said I’ll try this. If it works perfect, if not I’ll go back home and work.”
She graduated in 2010 right after her 25th birthday and made her first trip to the United States in 2011 to begin playing on the Epson Tour – Road to the LPGA. Two years later Echeverria would earn her way on the LPGA Tour via the 2013 Final Qualifying Tournament.
But that was never just the end game when she turned pro. Her dream is yet to be captured but involves a return to South America.
“It would be a dream come true to play in Rio. When I turned pro, that was my goal – to play the Olympics,” Echeverria said. “So, so far I’m getting there but we still have a year and half to go so hopefully I’ll be there.”
Echeverria currently ranks 231st in the Rolex Rankings and by the field criteria for the 60-player field for the Olympics, she’s currently in the 45th spot in the Olympic rankings.
Along with the pride of representing Chile, she thinks getting to the Olympics and having success there could be huge for the popularity of golf.
“In our country, soccer is everything,” she said.
But the more success Chile has in the game, the more that will change. Nicole Perrot became the only Chilean ever to win on the LPGA Tour in 2005 when she won the Longs Drugs Challenge. Echeverria, for her part, was the closest she’s ever been in 31 career starts to winning two weeks ago at the ISPS Handa Women’s Australian Open, recording her a first top-10 finish with a tie for seventh.
“I took a different path than most the girls to get here but I’m happy with the way I did it,” Echeverria said.
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