Editor's note: The following is a letter written by PGA TOUR player Marcelo Rozo, who clinched his TOUR card at 2025 PGA TOUR Q-School presented by Korn Ferry, to himself.

Dear Marcelo,

Today I’m writing to you from a place that, for you, was once only a dream. I want you to know something from the very beginning: Yes, every effort was worth it. Yours, and the efforts of those who held you up when you still didn’t know how far you would go in this beautiful sport.

Because when you’re a child, you dream big, but you don’t understand the real cost of a dream. The cost isn’t just waking up early, training and repeating. It’s learning to live with doubt. With those days when the swing doesn’t show up, when the putter feels like a stranger, when golf seems to be testing your character more than your talent. That’s when the mirror becomes uncomfortable, when it forces you to look at yourself without filters and decide what kind of player, and what kind of person, you want to be.

That’s where you have a huge advantage — your family.

Because even when you’re alone on the course, you never reach success alone. There’s always someone who goes with you to practice when you’re tired. Someone who waits for you with a hot meal after a hard day. Someone who reminds you who you are when the course tries to convince you otherwise. Those people are your home, even when you’re far away, even when you’re quiet, even when you feel light-years away from everything familiar.

And the most beautiful thing is that support doesn’t always look like “cheering” or applause. Sometimes it’s logistics, patience, sacrifice. Sometimes it’s a timely word. Or a look that says, “I understand you,” without needing explanations. That also held you up when results took longer, when the road stretched out, when the finish line seemed to move a few meters farther.

None of this journey would have been possible without the efforts and lessons of your parents, Edgar and Marcela, and your brothers, Mateo and Juan Sebastián. With their unconditional support and patience, they showed by example that discipline, hard work and love for what you do always make sense, even when results take time to arrive.

Along with that support, even as a little kid, you quickly understood something fundamental: You loved the challenge, and you also enjoyed the pressure, the competition and… winning? What a beautiful feeling… that exact moment when everything is on the line and you have to trust yourself.

I’m writing this part from the bottom of my heart: Enjoy Tito, your best friend, your grandfather. Enjoy those days when he picked you up from school and your classmates complained as they watched you leave class to go to the range with your grandpa. Enjoy the hours of practice and the games through which, little by little, he built competitiveness in you and taught you the beauty not only of winning, but of learning the process.

Enjoy the unscripted conversations, the walks from tee to green, the comfortable silences, the laughter over tiny things that grow enormous with time. Enjoy the dinners around Bogotá after practice, where you talk about everything and nothing at the same time. Those moments shaped you, too. They gave you roots. They gave you a compass. And yes, they’re also responsible for who you are today, even if you don’t always notice it.

As you grew, golf stopped being just a sport and became a kind of mirror. One that doesn’t forgive excuses. One that confronts your mind. And without realizing it, along the way you learned the hardest thing: to breathe when everything tightens, to choose calm when your body wants to run and to trust the process even when the result isn’t showing. You learned to steady yourself in the middle of the noise; not to rush out of desperation, but to understand that many times the bravest thing is to start again from the same adjustment over and over, without drama, without spectacle, only with conviction.

You didn’t need anyone to convince you that this was where you shined. You discovered it yourself. You discovered that fear didn’t stop you, that high stakes woke you up, that the golf course was the place where your fighting, winning spirit found meaning.

And you discovered another truth. Being a winner isn’t never failing. Being a winner is not negotiating your character when you fail. It’s getting up without resentment. It’s believing. It’s going back to the range the next day. It’s doing the invisible work. It’s correcting one tiny thing a thousand times until it becomes part of you.

That can’t be bought. That is built.

And in your case, it was built with patience, with humility, and with a quiet determination, the kind that doesn’t need to shout to be real.

Being a winner is also learning to lose well. Not to break over a bad day. Not to fool yourself with excuses. To accept responsibility without punishing yourself. To understand that this game doesn’t reward the person who gets angriest, but the one who can re-center himself on the inside.

There were days when it felt easier to give up, and even so, you kept going. You kept believing when no one was watching. You kept working when there was no applause. You kept dreaming even when the future looked uncertain and cloudy.

There were weeks when your suitcase felt heavier than your clubs. Weeks when your body was fine, but your mind was exhausted. Weeks when you stared at the ceiling of some random room and wondered if you were really going to make it. And even so, you kept going. Because at some point you understood that consistency is also a form of faith.

And that faith doesn’t always feel like motivation. Sometimes it feels like routine. Like discipline. Like doing the right thing even when you don’t feel like it. Like choosing training over excuses. Like returning to the game without guarantees. And that, Marcelo, is gold. Because that is exactly where those who merely want it are separated from those who achieve it.

And then, that Sunday, Dec. 14, 2025, came that final putt from less than a meter away, one that felt like two, the one you always dreamed of. “If I make this, I’m on the PGA TOUR.” One, two… and in it goes!

That sound, that moment, wasn’t just a ball dropping. It was the echo of every time you got back up. Every time you swallowed frustration and tried again. It was the reward for your patience, your humility, and that beautiful stubbornness that only those born to persist carry. It was the confirmation that the dream wasn’t a whim: It was a destiny earned.

And it was also a kind of huge silence inside. That strange second when you don’t know whether to laugh, cry or just stand there staring at the green as if it can’t be real. That second when everything you were to get there flashes through your head like a movie, but without words. Just feeling.

In that instant, I imagine your grandfather hugging your brother Mateo, jumping and smiling in heaven, celebrating an achievement that at times seemed to fade throughout these years of professional career, but that never stopped living inside you (or inside anyone who always supported you).

And I also imagine you, my childhood self. The one who watched tournaments and thought, “someday.” The one who maybe didn’t know how, but felt it. Today that boy can rest for a second, look at his hands, and say, “We did it.” Because this isn’t luck. This is sustained love. This is work. This is patience. This is family. This is believing when there was still nothing to show.

Not only for reaching the PGA TOUR, but for becoming someone who never stopped competing with himself, who never betrayed his love for the game, who understood that true victory was in the process, in daily discipline, and in perseverance when no one was watching.

Because in the end, golf taught you something that works for everything: that the most important shots are often not the longest, but the smartest; that sometimes you have to play to the center of the green; that there are days to survive and days to attack. And that greatness is also knowing how to wait for your moment.

It taught you that ego gets in the way, that patience pays, that the mind trains just like the body. It taught you to listen to the game. To listen to yourself. To respect the process even when the world only looks at the result.

Just as I said at the beginning, golf is love, and no one fulfills their dreams alone.

When the moment comes, you will find the woman who will completely change your perspective, the partner who makes it impossible to imagine a life with anyone else. When you meet Manuela, you will not only find the love of your life, you will also find your best friend, the one who supported you every step of the way, a woman who isn’t afraid to be human in the best possible way and who day by day becomes the best wife and mother to your son.

I write these words also thinking of your future son, Lolo, whom I thank every day for giving me a new perspective on life, for showing me what 100% selfless love is.

My greatest victory in life has been being his father and his best example.

This is also for you, Lolo, so that when you’re older, you understand that dreams aren’t pursued with talent alone, but with work, consistency and love for what you do. That the journey matters as much as, or more than, the final destination. That staying faithful to what you love and being your best version, every day, is the most valuable legacy I can leave you.

I hope that when you read this, you understand that pride isn’t only in the destination. It’s in the way. In how you treat people. In how you walk after a bogey. In how you celebrate without forgetting where you came from. That, Lolo, is also “winning.” And if you ever doubt, if the world ever rushes you or confuses you, go back to the basics: breathe, work, and remember why you started.

So Marcelo, I have only a few words left for you:

Thank you for not letting go of the dream.
Thank you for not settling.
Thank you for teaching me that what begins as a game can become an entire life.

With pride,
Marcelo