Swinging for green: How Álvaro Huidobro ironed out his American Dream

BY GAVIN PATRICK

Sports Editor

They say the United States is the land of opportunity. They say, when you have a dream, that anything is possible in this country. They say America is a beacon of hope for those who wouldn’t have any otherwise.

Are those words still true?

Look no further than this story’s place of origin—because Tarleton State University has been opening doors for international student athletes for years.

One of those athletes is Álvaro Huidobro.

Huidobro grew up in Gijón, Spain as an aspiring golfer. And upon graduation, he plans to move back overseas to Europe to pursue a career as a professional golfer.

But he wouldn’t have made it to this point without, first, living out his American dream.

Huidobro has been around the game of golf ever since he could walk. His grandparents always played at the course he had back home before he was born, and he grew up spending countless afternoons there with family and friends.

“I remember I got my first iron when I was two years old. It was a little Seven iron bury,” Huidobro said. “I started playing golf every single day. I was so lucky that my grandparents and my parents also played golf, so I kind of grew up with no other sports to play.”

Huidobro quickly became one of the best young golfers in Spain. He won the U16 Spanish regional championship in 2019 and the U16 interregional championship in 2018 and 2019. He also won the IV Castilla Y Leon Cup Federation in 2021.

Perhaps most notably, Huidobro has competed in the Spanish Amateur Championship every year, at his age group, since 2011 (and will compete again in June). This is where he made connections to join one of Spain’s premier sport programs: Blume National Golf School.

“I was lucky enough to play really good golf from when I was 14 to 16; that’s maybe the gap of age that the recruiters are looking for,” Huidobro said. “If you play good golf and you are high in the rankings, that’s when you get selected for the Blume.”

The Blume is, in Huidobro’s words, “an athlete’s school.”

Run by the Spanish Royal Golf Federation (RFEG), the school is devoted to developing elite young golfers under 18 who aspire to compete at the professional ranks. In short, it’s a grind.

“We were waking up at 6 a.m. in the morning, going to the gym, then going to class around eight to two and then golf practice was from three to seven,” Huidobro said. “That’s all the week for three years.”

Huidobro graduated in 2021 ranked in the top 20 of Spain’s U18 rankings. It was time to take his golfing to the next level. But where, exactly, was still in question.

None of Huidobro’s family members had ever attended college in the United States. They had a “tradition” of studying in Spain and chasing golf at the professional levels in Europe. His parents took that route. They were expecting the same from their son.

But not only did Huidobro want to play against the best golfers in the world; he also wanted to get a degree.

“In Spain, it’s very difficult to combine both,” Huidobro said. “Once you choose to study a degree in Spain, it’s way more difficult and requires more time in order to pass the classes. If you want to play college golf, or you wanna play professional golf and you wanna have a degree as well, the best option for us is to come to the states.”

Some of the best Spanish golfers have done just that. Jon Rahm, Jose Maria Olazabal, Sergio García, Seve Ballesteros, Miguel Ángel Jiménez and Rafa Cabrera-Bello have all played on the PGA Tour—and with great success.

“As I grew up watching all those guys that were older than me going to the states, it made me want to chase that dream as well,” Huidobro said.

Huidobro’s first stop in the U.S. was an unconventional one: Milligan University, a private Christian school in Elizabethton, Tennessee with an enrollment of 1,200 students.

The COVID-19 pandemic was in full swing at the time, and many DI and DII schools were not recruiting. They were, instead, giving their players a “gap year” that wouldn’t count for eligibility.

Huidobro considered taking a gap year of his own in Spain but decided to attend Milligan for a year, play good golf and transfer when better opportunities arose.

“It was probably the greatest thing that happened to me because I made really good friendships there, and the trade (from Spain to the U.S.) was so good and I learned a lot from there,” Huidobro said.

When recruiting opened back up, as Huidobro hoped, that’s when he discovered Tarleton.

The program was assembling their first men’s golf team in over 25 years. And after a friend hooked him up with the opportunity, Huidobro became the fourth member of the team and the first transfer.

“He told me, ‘Hey, I know this is a new program, and they have a couple spots. If you’re interested, email coach,’” Huidobro said. “So, I emailed coach, everything went smooth; we talked, it was a great relationship and he offered me a scholarship.”

Things seemed to be working out for Huidobro. He got his opportunity to play golf in the United States. He was making good grades, keeping in touch with his family back in Spain. Everything was set on the right path.

Then, he changed course.

Huidobro fell into bad habits his sophomore and junior year. “No drugs,” he said, but he was “drinking too much” and stopped taking care of his body and mental health. He even stopped enjoying golf.

Huidobro hit a low point after the fall 2023 semester. This time, he felt the impact. And all of a sudden, he snapped out of it.

“That was when I decided to change everything,” Huidobro said. “I stopped talking to everyone. I deleted every social media that I had. I was waking up at 6 a.m., going to the gym three times a day, eating just a little bit of the food that I was cooking, reading books, [listening to] podcasts—just kind of getting in my own bubble, working on myself.”

One person who helped pull Huidobro out of that place was his strength coach, David Anderson.

“Right from the get-go, he approached me and was like, ‘Hey, I got problems with my key spine, with my ankles, my hip, my back.’ And so, he went through some series of testing, either stuff he’d done before and didn’t work, and then I’d come up with something new until we found stuff that worked and helped him,” Anderson said.

Over the next year and a half, Huidobro underwent a “big body change” and mental rerouting. He was outworking those around him, and his coach took notice.

“He was the one on the team that you could tell he cared and he wanted to get a lot of extra work in, always asking a question,” Anderson said. “He was always trying to find stuff to help him that we translate to golf.”

And translate it did. In March 2024, Huidobro had his best collegiate performance at The Big Texan, finishing 5-under-par and tying for second overall individually.

The previous tournament, he shot a career-low 8-under-par, which tied him for fifth place. Suddenly, things were clicking again.

“It was awesome to see Álvaro turn the corner with back-to-back top-fives,” head coach Chance Cain said after The Big Texan. “He’s been putting a lot of work in his game, and it’s been great for him to see that starting to pay off.”

Now, Huidobro is taking that work ethic to the professional ranks in Europe, joining many of his Spanish friends.

There have been many people who have been supportive of Huidobro, but none more than his parents: the ones who gave him the opportunity to play golf in the United States and many more before then, which Huidobro will be forever grateful for.

“They are being the best thing that happened to me ever,” Huidobro said. “... They are the ones that showed me how life works and showed me that bad things are gonna happen… and you’re gonna have to be with people that you like, [who] mean [something] to you.”

Many of those people are back in Spain, waiting for him to come home after graduation.

As for America, the words rang true.