All Tina Mazarino wants to do is play golf – not just any golf. She has set her sights very high – the Ladies European Tour.
Sponsored by Atalaya Golf & Country Club, the young Norwegian golfer turned professional in 2019 at the age of 18. Her only goal, then, was to play golf. Today, her goal is the same. She holds fast to her decision to focus only on golf. College is not on her “to do” list.
The past two years have not been easy for Tina. She first contracted a debilitating virus and then COVID-19. Her father, who is her constant companion and caddy, also had medical issues. Last year, he was hospitalised, not with coronavirus, but with a grave condition. All of this put a big damper on Tina’s ability to train, as well as on her training program. Fortunately, both Tina and her father have fully recovered, and Tina is now able to move forward with her goals.
During the spring of 2021, Tina travelled to South Africa twice to play in the ladies Sunshine Tour. She entered tournaments in Johannesburg, Cape Town and Sun City. “It was mostly for practice,” she said.
After returning to Norway, she and her father travelled to the Czech Republic for practise and play. However, her time in the Czech Republic was cut very short when she received an invitation via email to play the Ladies European Tour Jabra Ladies Open at the famous Evian Golf Resort by Lake Geneva in France.
Unfortunately, Tina missed the cut in Evian. Consequently, she and her father made the decision to drive to the Costa del Sol to practice and prepare for her 2021 tournament season. Along with her little dog Alice, Tina and her dad packed up and drove to their favourite venue in the world, Atalaya Golf.
Tina comments that she loves Atalaya’s special members’ practice hole between Holes 11 and 14 on our championship Old Course.
During the past two plus weeks, the team of three have spent everyday intensively practising and playing at our club, courtesy of Atalaya’s General Director Andrés Sánchez Garcia.
All of this hard work has been for good reason. Tina has been preparing to play in the 2021 LET Access Series. The LET Access series is the official development tour of the Ladies European Tour. Through this tour, players step up to the Ladies European Tour.
If she is seeded in the top six in the LET Access Series’ Order of Merit at the end of the 2021 season, Tina will automatically receive a card to play on the Ladies European Tour in 2022. This is her dream – her number one goal.
Now off to her first tournament of the season – the Golf Flanders LETAS – Tina hopes to finish at the top of the leaderboard. The tournament is at Rinkven International Golf Club nearby Antwerp in Belgium.
The Atalaya Golf Family wishes Tina all of the very best. We will follow her closely on her path to success and the attainment of her 2022 Ladies European Tour card.
