Mateo Fuenmayor played multiple sports growing up before putting his focus on golf.
Going into his sophomore year of high school, Mateo Fuenmayor had a decision to make. He knew he wanted to play at the Division 1 level, the question was which sport to pursue.
His father, Jorge, had been a DI tennis player and Fuenmayor started in that sport at a young age. He also took up golf as a young boy, and later on he enjoyed playing team sports. But if he was going to earn a scholarship, it was time to devote his energy to one sport.
“So even though football, baseball and basketball, those three, were super, super fun to me, I had to be realistic with myself and make that decision and look at it in the long term and see which sport I was going to excel in in the future. I chose golf and ran with it,” Fuenmayor said.
His decision paid off with an offer from Oregon State and now the senior from Mountainside High in Beaverton is one of the team leaders.
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Because Fuenmayor hadn’t specialized in golf from a young age, he was at a different stage in his development than most of the players OSU men’s golf coach Jon Reehoorn usually recruits.
“I saw somebody that had a lot of upside and potential. He was always a big, strong athletic kid, hadn’t really dedicated himself to golf yet because he pretty much played every sport growing up,” Reehoorn said. “He drove the ball really far and straight. And so I felt like that would translate to college golf because at junior golf, the courses just aren’t long enough, compared to what we play. There’s a lot of kids that can compete (as juniors) that don’t really have the skills that might transfer to what we do.”
Fuenmayor played some during his freshman year and became a regular contributor during his sophomore year, playing on the team that qualified for the NCAA regionals. He won his first collegiate tournament as a junior, sharing first place at the Duck Invitational in Eugene and helping the team earn another trip to regionals.
This year, he finished fourth at the Husky Invitational in Bremerton, Washington. Fuenmayor shot a 7-under 209 over 54 holes at the Gold Mountain Olympic Course. He felt that was some of the best golf he has ever played.
“That is where I know my game can be, where it can go at times when I’m playing well,” Fuenmayor said. “So that was a nice result to see. That’s kind of going to be the benchmark for me going forward because I know I have the potential to post results like that.”
The tournament was a classic example of a positive cycle where good results led to increased confidence which led to more good results.
“It was one of those weeks where I stepped up over every shot and knew it was going to be a good result,” Fuenmayor said. “I had full confidence in just about everything I was doing. I got off to good starts in every round. I was always playing from the driver’s seat … never really had to play defense the whole tournament.”
But not every round goes so well. Reehoorn said like many other young golfers, Fuenmayor needs to continue to develop his ability to compete on the days when his “A” game has gone missing. Fuenmayor is extremely competitive and that very trait can make it tough to keep an even level on the inevitable tough days on the course.
“It’s easy as a golfer to expect perfection all the time and when Mateo is on he can shoot really low scores like he did in round one of our home tournament,” Reehoorn said, pointing to Fuenmayor’s 5-under 66 last week at Trysting Tree. “Avoiding losing confidence and attaching one shot to another, for any golfer that’s hard.”
Reehoorn gave Fuenmayor credit for taking responsibility for his own game after his arrival at Oregon State. Reehoorn said many junior golfers get very attached to their personal coaches and struggle when they are on their own. Fuenmayor handled that transition well, Reehoorn said, and that is a positive sign for his future.
If Fuenmayor is going to make the step to the professional level, which he hopes to do, Reehoorn said the ability to handle the pressure will be crucial.
“It can be a lonely world out there and you need to be able to figure things out,” Reehoorn said.
Fuenmayor said he is interested in a professional career and has talked about it with his coaches and parents. For him, it is mostly a question of his love for the sport.
“At the end of the day it’s just going to come down to how much I still enjoy golf. At this point, it’s something I want to do still,” Fuenmayor said. “As long as I’m still out there enjoying golf and love it as much as I did when I was little, then it’s something I’m going to want to try.”
The Oregon State men’s golf team has one tournament remaining on its fall schedule. The Beavers will compete at the Cal Poly Invitational in Carmel, California on Oct. 30-31. The team will then break for the winter, returning to action in February at the Amer Ari Invitational in Hawaii.
