Federica Piovano retired with a wrist injury after eight holes during the first round of the Sicilian Ladies Italian Open.  In so doing, she also stepped away from her career as a professional golfer on the Ladies European Tour.  

“I’m sad because I would have liked to have finished my last tournament but that’s the way it is,” said the 2005 Siemens Austrian Ladies Open winner who joined the LET eight years ago following a successful amateur career.

“I played until number eight and couldn’t hit it any more. I had a bad drive on six and had to play out of a hole so it was a pretty hard shot. I had some problems already practising from mats. Today it felt like a sharp injection.

“Since the beginning of the year I decided this was going to be my last season because I have another passion in my life which is teaching. My motivation for playing is not the same as when I started so I decided I want to teach full-time.”

In a country of approximately 100,000 golfers and 30 professionals, Piovano hopes to help continue the development of the Italian golf scene by producing more world class female players to follow in the footsteps of the likes of Matteo Manassero and the Molinari brothers.

“I think we are doing pretty well. We don’t have a lot of numbers so we are 10 pros and six of us have a full card on tour and one with a full card on LPGA. With the number of female golfers we have in Italy that’s impressive,” she said.

Federica, who turns 30 next week, is continuing to work as a coach at Parco di Roma and hopes to attract more youngsters to golf.  

“I have a lot of passion for this game and I love to teach as well so definitely want to keep it up and hopefully I will get some good juniors to grow up and do this as a job. This is my new goal,” she said.

Federica’s most successful season on Tour was in 2005 when she won her sole LET title at Golfclub Fohrenwaldh in Austria and finished 21st on the money list. She had three additional top ten-finishes on the LET including a tie for fourth at the 2008 Ladies Irish Open and as an amateur, she won the Italian national championship six times and represented Europe at the Junior Ryder Cup.

“I’m glad with what I did. I’ve been travelling around with golf since I was 13 so first with the national amateur team and now as a professional and I had a victory on tour, so I wouldn’t change anything. I’m pretty satisfied with what I did,” she said.