Fátima Carriles has enjoyed golf from different angles. She began playing when she was six years old and when she was thirteen, after multiple competitions in the Federacion Madrileña de Golf, she decided that she wanted to go to the EEUU to study there. Once she finished her degree, she stayed in Florida competing in the LPGA second league, at the time it was called the Sunshine Golf, and she tried to play the LET. A mental crisis in 2017, provoked by her lack of funds to pay for the tournaments, made her decide to start working with her sister organizing tailor-made luxury trips, many of them including golf. It was at that time that she understood that golf has different angles, beyond the competition. She also began to collaborate with magazines, writing golf course reviews.

With the Covid, the travel industry slowed down and Fatima enlisted as a caddie. She carries Patricia Sanz’s bag first, and Marta Martin’s, Noemí’s, Natasha Fear’s and Silvia Bañon’s afterwards. While she was examining one of the courses, another caddie who was watching her, encourages her to go back to the competition. That makes her think about it and in 2021 she finally becomes a professional. But things didn’t turn out as she expected and, due to a new situation of financial instability, she puts competition aside again to start in the real estate industry this time. Fátima discovers then that there is something missing in her life, that is why since the spring of 2024 she has come back to the professional competition with the firm intention of staying for a long time.

Fatima, what has made you come back?

I realized that I had left golf because I was scared of financial instability. So, I decided to face all my fears and to do it for me. The friends I started with, such as Nuria and Marta, are in the LET wining money or they have abandoned it. Now, I have decided to not compare myself to anyone and to follow my own path. I still have the travel agency and I decide what tournaments I play.

What have you changed?

With Golf Coaching Academy, at the Hípica, my technic was very good because it has wonderful coachers. I have been with David Castillo and Miguel Fajardo. Now, I’m working on my mental part, not at golf but at personal, spiritual level, and at the technical level Noemí Jimenez is helping me.

Where do you want to go in your career? Do you want to get big or small achievable challenges?

I have always been a visionary regarding my dreams, but I think that now, more than ever, what it is important is the process. So, now I’m more in the present. My objective in every tournament is to play free and I am focusing on my present objective; to do things right, to keep on working with my sister on the trips and with respect to golf to play well. Now, I have broken with all those schemes of objectives and calendars, I want to be free inside and outside the course.

How have you felt when you came back to competition?

I have felt pure gratitude and happiness, despite the result. I have centred on the small results, on keeping the small victories… three birdies in a row, after a double bogey if I base it on the result, but most of all on the short game and I start again. Being in the sun, after having spent some time in an office, and being back with my international friends. I am playing with pure gratitude.

What tournaments are you playing?

I am playing the LET Access Series and the Santander Golf Tour. It is very important to have the support of sponsors such as ITECOR (Switzerland), the Bamboo Base (Bamboo), De La Fe Solutions (Trading). And I have some other collaborators, such as Not Only a Golf Brand (Gloves), Amior Golf. Toa Shoes, Sport Reset + Duerme Más (mattresses for sportspeople), Forelson Golf and Abacus Pinea Wine, Good Sparks Energy, Four Cotton and Super Speed Golf.

Who are your models in golf? Are they still the same as when you started or have they changed?

What a good question! When I was a child Adriana Zwank who went to the University in the EEUU, that was when I was around twelve or thirteen and she was the one who advised me most and best when I decided to go. Afterwards, I admired very much Daniela Holmqvist, who is a Swede I saw fighting like a champion in the last phase of the LPGA classification, and when I met her in person, I loved the way she was speaking to her caddie. He said he knew how she was going to decorate her new apartment because she was talking about it when going out to the course. That was her on-off switch on the course. I admire very much Celine Herbin because she is the opposite to the Asiatic girls who achieve triumphs since they are twelve years old. I like a lot Lexi Thompson, the way she trains and I think it is very important what she has said this year about how she is going to leave it due to her lack of personal life. It is crucial not to leave your personal life for golf because it is still a job.

But it is difficult to find a partner when you have your agenda full of journeys…

Well, it is difficult to generalize, but, for example, in my last relationship, he was very supportive with me, but he was afraid when I wasn’t there. I think that in this career there is a moment in which you have to choose if you want a family or not, but we have a few cases. For example, Azahara Muñoz has her family and she has represented Spain in the Olympic Games. I think that her husband has supported her, Sara Kouskova, she is not Spanish, but her caddie is her partner and he has also been at the Olympic Games. I think that, in the end, if it is not golf, there are many other jobs that make you travel. It is more a question of the personal connection that you have with your partner. I myself haven’t found him, but I think that it is feasible.

You have also been a caddie. What is the relation with your caddie?

The one I envy the most is Carlota with Alvaro Prada, a caddie who knows a lot, who has the data, who gets ready, who has the empathy to know when to speak and when not, that is crucial. If they are training with you and can travel, that is the top league and it is the objective. Right now, I am with local caddies. At the Santander Golf Tour from Pedreña my sister came with me, having your sister as a support is wonderful. It is someone who has empathy, who knows how to read you, if it is someone who tells you what to do it is marvellous because that takes away your stress of the round. I have had professional caddies at the school but you lack the connection with them and that is most important of all.

The quarry of women’s golf in Spain is impressive!

Well, of golf and all the sports. We are Spanish, tell us what you want us to win and we’ll win it. Yes, the truth is that many very strong girls are arriving. I think that the visibility that women’s golf has now is very important. It is helping a lot to have magazines like yours, women such as Susana from GolfHadas with podcasts, we have Piti giving lessons to girls… I think that it is how each one makes an impact on her club, as much as the promotion of the tour itself.