To say student athletes are passionate about their sport is a common occurrence but for a student athlete to travel halfway across the globe to play the sport they love is a completely different situation. However, freshman Victoria Hualde has done just that.

Hualde was born in Pamplona, Spain and has played golf for almost her entire life. She began playing when she was just five years old and began taking lessons when she was only seven. “I had some small clubs to play with,” said Hualde. “I used to get mad with my family because they only let me play some of the course. They only let me play the easier ones [holes].” 

Hualde comes from a family of golfers. She explained that her parents started to play when they were first dating and all of her family had followed since then. “My mother thinks golf teaches a lot of good qualities for life, like patience and honesty,” she said. “My family decided it was going to be the sport of our family.” Hualde’s sister, Elena, golfed at Auburn University from 2016 until 2020 and was a part of the 2017 SEC All-Freshman Team. She now golfs professionally in Spain.

Hualde’s sister’s experience in the U.S. played a huge role in her decision to study and compete abroad. “She had a great experience there and so I think I was wanting to have the same experience as her,” she explained. In Spain, college students are not allowed to study and compete in sports at the same time, which was concerning for Hualde. 

The change in scenery for the first time visitor of the U.S. was quite a culture shock, especially when it comes to the food we eat, Hualde explained. “You eat a lot of fast food,” she said. “You fry everything. Also the size, the size here is enormous… I take the extra small size and it was bigger than the extra large in Spain.”

The American sports culture was another big change for Hualde. “You have a culture that loves to watch all kinds of sports,” she said. “In Spain we only see soccer, like football, and we don’t give importance to other sports.”

The golf team did not see Hualde take action until halfway through the fall season, but she had some good performances at the last three tournaments of the season, finishing 48th, 38th and 46th. Hualde had the third best performance among her fellow Panthers at those tournaments as well.

Hualde did not have a typical route in crossing the near 4,500 miles to get to Northern Iowa. “I have a girl in Spain that had already come here and now she helps other girls to find a university in the U.S., so I talk to her and she gets in touch with different universities,” Hualde said. “I had a lot of interviews with different universities. And I don’t know, I liked UNI.”

Just like any freshman, adjusting to college life was not an overnight occurrence for Hualde, and not speaking the same language as most of her professors didn’t help either. “The language was pretty hard for me. I can understand but it’s really hard for me to express myself well,” she said. “I’m really happy with my classes, but sometimes it’s hard to understand my professors.” 

Hualde is majoring in psychology, with hopes of becoming a sports psychologist. “Golf is just for fun, I don’t want to become a professional golfer; it’s not my plan,” she said. “I want to go back to Spain. I would love to get married and have children, a lot of children.”

College life can be hard, and for student athletes it can be even harder. But for Hualde, it’s a completely different level. “I love to play golf and compete, I really like to compete,” Hualde said. “In Spain most people stop playing golf in their last year of high school and when they start college, so I was really alone playing golf in Spain. And here, I really like having a team and people of my age that like playing golf and competing.”