Veteran pro’s emotional farewell included touching moment on final hole

Retirement parties take many forms, depending on the person and the profession.

If you’re a staid insurance broker, your sendoff might involve a quiet office celebration and the jokey gift of a rocking chair. If you’re a rock star, you might be more inclined to launch a farewell tour that never really ends.

But what if you’re a seasoned professional golfer, not prominent enough to inspire a Golf Channel special but a well-liked figure who decides the time has come to hang up the spikes? 

At this week’s Omega European Masters in Switzerland, DP World Tour veteran Mike Lorenzo-Vera chose a sweet and understated way to say goodbye.

His sign-off wasn’t unexpected. In April, the 40-year-old Frenchman had announced that he planned to call it quits as he wrestled with ongoing mental-health issues. Enough was enough. He’d been at it for 20 years, notching close to 300 DP World Tour starts and competing in eight majors, highlighted by a T-16 showing at the 2019 PGA Championship at Bethpage Black.

Tournament golf had paid the bills and then some. But the personal costs had grown too steep.

“I could have said my wrist hurts but was just the brain that was hurting,” Lorenzo-Vera told europeantour.com. “It’s important to talk because I’ve received a lot of messages saying what I said was what they were living. It just gives the advice to maybe speak to someone.”

With his decision made, the only questions remaining for Lorenzo-Vera were where, when and how.

He chose an apt time and place.

For Lorenzo-Vera, the Omega European Masters is infused with meaning. It was while playing the event, a decade ago, that Lorenzo-Vera learned of his father’s death. The tournament and its scenic Crans-Sur-Sierre venue, he determined, would make the “perfect” setting to bid adieu. 

The people who surrounded him were fitting, too.

Paired with friends and countrymen Marciel Siem and Alexander Levy, Lorenzo-Vera posted an opening round 73, which he backed up with a 75. He wasn’t going to make the cut, but at least he had good company, which got even better by day’s end.

As Lorenzo-Vera marched up the fairway of his final hole (the par-5, 9th hole), he was joined by his two young daughters.

“I hit the ball everywhere but least was with my friends and family,” Lorenzo-Vera said. 

For his final shot as a touring pro, he poured in a putt for par. He then embraced his playing partners, and, with his children still beside him, walked off the green and into the rest of his life.