Cayetana Fernández surprised all the enthusiasts with a promising performance at the Comunidad de Madrid Ladies Open. Being just 16 years old, the player from Madrid showed a mature play and a consistency that many pros of the circuit would like to have. She achieved a place among the first classified for the final on the second day and she was able to be at the stellar game of the last round. Ana Peláez and her drove the audience crazy. They conquered all the followers of the tournament while enjoying a unique experience. The proud and smiley player from Madrid stole the heart of all the spectators and didn’t disappoint them at any moment. Her wonderful game left her in the third position tied with great players such as Pia Babnik and Manon De Roey. The young amateur felt thrilled and thankful: “The truth is that I am very happy that the federation have given me this opportunity to play, because not everyone can play professional tournaments. And I have enjoyed all the time for being able to compare myself with the pros that are at the top now”, she said.

Cayetana who is in the CETEMA program, combines her high school studies with the golf. She already has a scholarship for next year in the EEUU: “Next August I’m going to the Texas MIUC. I’ll be there with my sister Blanca the first year. Most of all I want to finish my degree because you never know. Afterwards I’ll try to do Le Qualifier and I’ll try to play in the LPGA. If it doesn’t work there, my challenge would clearly be to try to get the card for the LET. If not, the LETAS. What I certainly know is that I would like to do this for a living. I have been playing since I was a small child and it is a sport that I love”, she explains.

What’s bred in the bones comes out in the flesh, because it was her father, who loves golf, the one who managed to convey his passion to his three daughters: “He took us with him and we started to train and play. It has been forever in our life. Just one week without playing and I feel weird, I miss the course even just to go for a walk. It is a very pleasant sport”, Cayetana tell us. She is delighted to know that she won’t be alone so far from home: “Obviously, being with my sister the first year is a gift, I am very lucky, because the first year is said to be very tough. I am delighted to go to the same university as my sister and to enjoy the first year together. We have a very good relationship. Our aim is to become pro together, we want to live it together, it could be said that it is like the Korda sisters”, she laughs.

Even though Cayetana was unknown to the audience outside Madrid and for people outside the golf world, the young player knows the fruits of success. She won the Copa Su Majestad La Reina Tournament in 2021 and in 2022 and she was finalist in 2020, she has also achieved many titles in team tournaments. Even so, she wasn’t sure that she wanted to be a pro until very recently:

“I have changed my mind may times, because when you are a child, you see it clearly. Afterwards I wasn’t so sure for a while. A few years ago, I started to like it very much, I began to watch more women’s golf and the truth is that I like it more and more every day. It was then when I started to have the dream of becoming like Nelly Korda; I am a fan of hers. I was lucky to go to the Solheim and watch them play. That made me keen to be a pro, I said “I want this in my life” and I would like to be like the professionals that I saw playing there”.

Despite being so young, Cayetana is incredibly mature and has an exquisite education. She admires Carlota Ciganda deeply and she is conscious of all the sacrifices that golf demands if you want to be successful: “I think that what it is most complicated is your mind. I don’t like to work on it. We work with Oscar del Rio once a week, he helps us quite a lot. I have improved a lot. This is the most important part in golf because if you don’t have a good mind, you won’t get anything even being very good”, she explains very self-confident. The poise she has showed all the time has impressed us all: “I wasn’t so tranquil inside. What works the best for me is to breath and maybe to take my mind off it by drinking, eating or speaking with someone. It is a way to evade myself from the game. Once I am in front of the ball I concentrate, most of all doing my breathing”, she says.

With a great swing and precision on the greens, Cayetana has now a new objective: “Short game is harder for me, but I am quite good at the long one, so I am training the putt and the approach, they are the most important to improve” she explains.

In the face of so much self-confidence, we can just agree with her, wish her all the luck and join her in her words of gratitude to her family, friends and the CETEMA. Thank you all!!