PGA Tour member ’26.
“I told myself it was going to happen,” said Rozo, a 36-year-old from Bogota, Colombia, whose foray into the final stages of the PGA Tour Q-School haunted the big show for more than a decade. “It was my day, and I was built for this, literally working my whole life for this moment.”
On Sunday afternoon, Rozo added the exclamation point, a clutch par on the final of the TPC Sawgrass’ Dye’s Valley course, with a spirited 1-under 69 in windy conditions and securing Rozo his first PGA Tour card.
As Rozo’s short putt disappeared, erasing years of heartbreak, the journeyman delivered a powerful uppercut as everything poured out of him. Amid a series of hugs, Rozo looked up briefly, tears glistening in the setting sun, before pulling the brim of his hat over his eyes. This one was for his late grandfather, Vicente Falaschini, an Argentine golf professional and course designer who was Rozo’s first teacher; Falaschini died in 2004, when Rozo was 14 years old. It was also for Mateo, Rozo’s eldest brother and aspiring college golfer whose discipline and fun-loving spirit – he was also a great dancer – inspired his little brother, who was just 11 when Mateo had to undergo nasal surgery to alleviate certain allergies. He developed an infection in the operating room and died three months later, just days before his twentieth birthday.
After Mateo’s death, Rozo’s other brother, Juan, retired from the game. But Marcelo continued playing, first on the Latin junior circuit and then at D-II Lynn University before turning pro in 2012. Rozo won three times on the PGA Tour Latinoamerica, including the 2013 Argentina Open, and earned Korn Ferry Tour status for the first time in 2019.
Although Rozo never lost KFT status, a serious wrist injury derailed almost his entire career. After four months of failed rehabilitation, Rozo had surgery in December 2022 to repair a triangular tear in the fibrocartilage complex in his left wrist. It took Rozo nine months to hit his first chip, and the pain was excruciating.
“It’s really a blessing that I’m playing,” Rozo said. “I love this game, but I thought I would never come back.”
During his absence, Rozo and his wife Manuela, whom he met in high school after Manuela’s family moved to Bogota, welcomed their first child, a son named Lorenzo. As the family grew, Rozo considered changing jobs. He got his real estate license and got into broadcasting. But Manuela wouldn’t let him give up.
“She’s my rock,” Rozo said. “There were a few years where she took everything on her shoulders when golf wasn’t working for me.”
Rozo returned to the competition at the end of 2023 but only managed eight cuts, finishing at number 128 on the KFT points list last year. That’s when he called his compatriot and idol Camilo Villegas, a five-time PGA Tour winner. Villegas is from Manuela’s hometown of Medellín and now lives in Jupiter, Florida, not far from Rozo in Boca Raton. With Villegas’ advice, Rozo continued, this time finishing at number 45 in points to secure his full KFT card for 2026.
“He just kept believing in it,” Villegas said. “Ultimately that is the message for everyone; you just have to keep believing.”
Villegas, who practiced with Rozo in the weeks leading up to the final leg, was also Q-School roommates with Rozo when they stayed at the home of another Colombian tour professional, two-time PGA Tour winner Nico Echavarria, who was on his honeymoon. Having seen Rozo’s form up close, Villegas knew he would perform well. Rozo stormed into Q-School contention with a second-round 64 on Friday at Dye’s Valley, followed by a late birdie barrage on Saturday at Sawgrass Country Club, where he took birdies Nos. 15-17 to card 65 and grabbed a share of the 54-hole lead with Ben Kohles. But on the morning of the final round, Villegas sensed Rozo’s anxiety before heading to an earlier start time.
“I was already stretching,” Rozo recalls, “and he came down and told me, ‘Hey, at some point you’re going to feel like it’s going to get away from you. It’s definitely going to happen. Just know that you just have to keep fighting until the end.'”
After talking to Villegas and his coaches, something was still wrong.
“I’m like, man, I got something – I got like a knot right here in my chest,” Rozo said. “I have to let it out.”
Then he went upstairs and cried.
“Emotions were running high,” Rozo said. “I told myself: you have to see the emotions, recognize them, embrace them and then just move on, because they are there.”
Rozo’s thoughts wandered to the future all day. But every time he looked at his feet and said to himself: bring it back. He also ignored the rankings and didn’t see himself slipping with two bogeys and no birdies on his front nine. But bringing it back meant making birdies Nos. 10, 14 and 15, the latter with a deft approach in a difficult wind to within a few feet. When Rozo walked off the par-5 16th with a disappointing par, he knew he had to know where he stood. He was one shot in a possible playoff.
Speaking of playoffs, Rozo’s biggest brush with extras came on the Korn Ferry Tour in 2019, when he lost to a young pro from Texas named Scottie Scheffler. If Rozo had won that day, he likely would have graduated from the PGA Tour.
“He came into my mind…,” Rozo said. “I’m glad to see him again.”
Rozo felt his heart racing on the final tee as he stepped forward to hit what he called, “The hardest tee shot I have ever hit in my career.” He went with 5-wood so that if he missed he still had a chance. He played away from the water on the left, missed the fairway on the right and clipped a tree branch, then just tried to push something up around the green to give himself a chance. He did better than that, hitting the green and his par putt as stress-free as possible given the moment.
“It was probably the hardest par I’ve ever made in my life,” Rozo said.
Manuela, who had driven by with Lorenzo to surprise her husband on Sunday morning, sat on the lawn behind TPC Sawgrass’ expansive clubhouse and watched the broadcast on her phone. Villegas, who earlier missed a short birdie on the last to finish one shot out of the play-off, had also plopped down next to them. When Rozo took his card, Manuela screamed, and as he approached the score in a cart, Manuela jumped up and down while Lorenzo played with a stuffed Mickey Mouse doll. All three then embraced in a hug.
“As much as that short putt I missed last time hurts, I think it was pretty cool to see my peers achieve their dreams and made this a special day for Marcelo,” Villegas said. “I was quite emotional. I had tears in my eyes.”
He wasn’t the only one. Rozo choked several times during his post-round interview. When asked what he knew about the PGA Tour, Rozo, who has made just four starts there in his career, said he didn’t know much, just that he wanted to play on it. The journey was tough, but achieving his dream made everything worth it.
His grandfather and brother Mateo could not experience this breakthrough, but Lorenzo did.
Rozo hopes that his son will one day take this away:
“Nothing in life is easy, but if you work, you can achieve anything you dream of.”
And as Sunday proved, writing it down helps.
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