Renato Paratore enjoys his return to success after five years

From success to hardship and back again. After years of purgatory, Renato Paratore has found victory again. In the United Arab Emirates, he dominated the UAE Challenge, an event on the HotelPlanner Tour, returning to celebrate a feat 1,723 days after the last time (British Masters on the DP World Tour in July 2020). “I’m really happy. It was a major exploit because I had not been able to establish myself for a long time. I had doubts and asked myself, ‘But will I be able to come back and win?’ It wasn’t easy, but I did it. And now, the goal for 2025, is to regain the ‘card’ for the top continental circuit,” Paratore explains in a heart-to-heart interview on federal channels.

It is the story of a predestined Paratore. Born December 14, 1996, in Rome, Italy, as an amateur he first won the Junior Orange Bowl in 2013 in Miami, USA, then, in 2014, the Portuguese International Amateur Championship in Palmela. In a year to remember embellished with a gold medal in the individual competition at the 2014 Summer Youth Olympic Games in Nanjing where he then celebrated a team bronze in tandem with Virginia Elena Carta before taking the European ‘Boys’ title with the Italian team in Norway. Not bad for a guy who played the Junior Ryder Cup twice with Team Europe and, at 17, distinguished himself as the third youngest player, in the history of the Qualifying School, to secure a ‘card’ for the then European Tour in Spain except to win, a few days later, and in his first competition as a professional (in November 2014), the National Open Championship at San Domenico Golf in Savelletri di Fasano (Brindisi). In June 2017, in Sweden and the Nordea Masters, the first feat on the European Tour at 20 years and 172 days. In July 2020, the joy at the British Masters. Then, the disappointments. “Looking back,” Paratore says, “I am proud of what I have done so far. Of course, in these last years I would have liked to give more. I won’t hide it: I missed out. When you know success so early, expectations are high. Not only from the outside, but from yourself. I made it to the top 100 players in the world and put the Top 50 in my sights, looking for changes that messed me up. I realized that I struggle to find playing techniques that are different from my own. I am a ‘feel’ golfer and now, finally, I have found my swing again.” He never gave up, Paratore, even when things were not only not good, but bad. And to those who have experienced, are experiencing or will experience those difficulties, he advises, “You must never stop believing. It is precisely when everything is not going right that one must fight. Think of Rory McIlroy, an example of resilience, perseverance. He had not won a Major in 11 years, and at Augusta, he managed to complete the Grand Slam. He accomplished something really crazy.”

Family, friends, loyalists, staff. To them, Paratore – who grew up (sportingly speaking) at Parco di Roma Golf Club and is a member of Olgiata Golf Club – dedicated his victory in the UAE. “It was nice to receive the embrace of the many Azzurri in the competition, starting with Rome’s Filippo Celli and Enrico Di Nitto. For the past six months I have been back working with Alberto Binaghi (Technical Commissioner of the FIG Men’s National Team, ed.), we know each other very well and are really in sync. My athletic trainer is Massimo Bramanti, the manager Guillen Gorka. Then, as a new entry, there is nutritionist Luisa Costato, with her I also work a lot on the mental aspect.”
And now Paratore optimistically looks to the present but also to the future. “I would like to return to play on the DP World Tour, first and foremost. But the dream always remains the one I’ve been cradling since childhood: to measure myself on the PGA Tour and in America alongside the best in the world.” A Roma fan and big animal lover, over the years he has named his dogs Tiger, Rory and Scottie after three golf greats-Woods, McIlroy and Scheffler. “But if I were to get a little girl I would name her Nelly, after Korda,” Paratore concludes with a smile.