AUGUSTA, GEORGIA | As a little girl, Valentina Giraldo’s goal was to play golf in the United States.
She watched Tiger Woods play in the Masters and Lorena Ochoa dominate the LPGA and told herself that one day she wanted to do that.
The native of Ibague, Colombia, thought it might never happen.
Now, at 22, she has played college golf and earned a degree in business management from Jacksonville State University in Alabama. And this week she’s playing in the inaugural Augusta National Women’s Amateur.
“This means a lot,” Giraldo said. “Playing golf at a high level has been my dream since I was 10 years old.
“I get to play where the Masters is.”
That will be the theme this week at the 54-hole stroke-play championship put on by Augusta National Golf Club. After playing the first two rounds at Champions Retreat Golf Club in Evans, Ga., near Augusta, all 72 competitors will play a practice round at Augusta National on Friday – whether or not they are among the top 30 who advance to Saturday’s final round at the home of the Masters. And that’s a big deal to these women.
“To be the first woman player from Colombia to play at Augusta and represent my country … it is the best feeling ever,” Giraldo said. “To show where you’re from, it’s an absolute honor for me.”
Ranked No. 128 in the women’s World Amateur Golf Ranking, Giraldo was one of the last players invited by the Augusta National Women’s Amateur Committee. She was very surprised to get the call – in fact, she missed it. She had to call back.
“It was kind of funny, looking back at it,” she said.
Giraldo finished Wednesday’s first round at Champions Retreat with a 7-over-par 79 and is tied for 59th. Although she didn’t play her best, she’s just enjoying the moment.
“I just keep fighting,” she said. “The course was a little long for me. … But on the holes I could reach the green, I gave myself some birdie opportunities.
“I just have to keep going, and continue to do my best.”
“(The pros) stay calm all day long and that’s amazing. They keep fighting the whole 18 holes.” – Valentina Giraldo
Giraldo came to the United States in January 2015 after being recruited by Jacksonville State head coach James Hobbs. She played almost immediately when she got off the plane.
“She was a good player, but not a world-beater,” Hobbs said in a telephone interview. “She played right away, but her game was very inconsistent. She would have good rounds and some average rounds.”
By the time Giraldo graduated, she had won six times – the most in school history – including the Ohio Valley Conference Championship. With that individual victory, she became the first women’s golfer in program history to compete as an individual in an NCAA Regional Championship.
“I really enjoyed it (at Jacksonville State) – every moment,” Giraldo said. “I learned a lot. I grew a lot – on and off the course. And I improved a lot. I worked really hard to get to where I am.”
Since the Jacksonville State started keeping records in 1983, Giraldo holds every program mark save for career birdies (in which she’s second).
That says a lot about the type of player she became in Jacksonville.
“When she left in January, she was one of the better players I ever got to coach at JSU,” Hobbs added. “She doesn’t have overpowering skill, she doesn’t hit it a long way off the tee, but she has worked very hard to get her skill to where it can be to compete with anyone, anywhere, anytime.
“She developed some good work habits and then work on the things she needed to concentrate on for her game to develop. Valentina has very good short game and is very good with her putter.”
For her last semester in the fall of 2018, Giraldo was strong for the Gamecocks, but her best finish was a third-place showing at the Chris Banister Classic. Since graduating in December, Giraldo has moved to Atlanta and has been practicing out of the Golf Club of Georgia and Laurel Springs Golf Club. She also picked up a part-time job at Interactive Communications so she can start saving money for when she turns professional.
While in school, during the summer months, she would travel an hour west to Birmingham to caddie at Shoal Creek Golf Club.
“That was a great experience,” Giraldo said. “All the members were really nice. Some of them texted me when I got my invitation. It was really nice of them.”
She attended the final round of the 2018 U.S. Women’s Open there, and it opened her eyes about professional golf and what it takes to play at the next level.
“(The pros) stay calm all day long and that’s amazing,” Giraldo said. “They keep fighting the whole 18 holes.”
As her amateur career begins to wind down – she plans to turn professional in the fall – she is making the most of this tournament and the other amateur tournaments she plans to play this summer.
“I would always say (when I was younger), it will be great to go to Augusta National and win a Masters, so just to be here means a lot to me,” she said.