The rapid rise of Rocco Repetto Taylor as Spaniard makes Major debut at U.S. Open

Mathieu Wood

When the U.S. Open took place last year, Rocco Repetto Taylor was competing around 7,000 km away in the Czech Republic as the newest first-time winner on the HotelPlanner Tour.

Away from the global gaze of a Major Championship, the Spaniard was enjoying an impressive start to his first full year as a professional golfer after also winning on the European-based Alps Tour.

Victory on home soil at the Challenge de Cadiz – in his second appearance on the HotelPlanner Tour - provided the platform for Repetto Taylor to earn promotion onto the DP World Tour for the 2026 season.

And now, after coming through a 36-hole qualifier at Walton Heath, the 23-year-old will make his Major Championship debut at Shinnecock Hills for what is undoubtedly the biggest stage of his promising fledgling career.

“I’m super pumped, super excited to be out here,” Repetto Taylor told the DP World Tour.

“Obviously, I would love to be able to play well but it’s going to be a great week no matter what.

“If you would have asked me a year ago, this [playing at a U.S. Open] would have been way beyond my goals.”

Waiting for an elusive top 20 finish in his rookie DP World Tour season, Repetto Taylor is enthused by the opportunity in front of him as he arrives on Long Island, New York, after a welcome return to home in Spain last week.

Despite coming off back-to-back missed cuts, he is staying grounded as he looks to change his fortunes.

“One thing I still have to do better is kind of give myself credit where it's due,” he said.

“It’s definitely been crazy. Things have come pretty quickly, but objectives have grown quicker with it too.

“So, it's sometimes hard to look back and just be grateful for how fast I did actually get to where I wanted to be.”

First and foremost, Repetto Taylor’s goal for 2026 is to retain his DP World Tour playing privileges for next season.

Reflecting on adjusting to an elevated level of competition this year, he added: “I feel like I've played a lot of good weeks and a lot of good golf where I guess the results just really haven't been there.

“Everyone plays a lot of good golf, and you’ve just got to wait until the week kind of happens.

“You have to realise that this is life from now on – it’s not an easy road.

“To be able to win tournaments and put up good scores, you just have to be patient.”

You have to realise that this is life from now on – it’s not an easy road.

Such are the sacrifices and financial struggles faced by many players, Repetto Taylor feared his pursuit of a career in professional golf might be cut short before it even started.

In 2024, after graduating from Oral Roberts University in Oklahoma earlier that year, the Spaniard joined the paid ranks with the financial backing of the Fairways & Greens Foundation.

Spearheaded by Daniel Colomar, Repetto Taylor’s coach since he was 16, athletes are supported at various stages of their development; starting at high school, before helping to prepare for university life and running through to the transition into a professional career.

Repetto Taylor is in no doubt of the gratitude he owes to their support.

“We have it pretty lucky out here on tour but sometimes you forget that golf's a pretty expensive sport,” he said.

“A lot of kids out there either end up stop playing the game, stop traveling to tournaments or just lose interest because of the financial burdens on their families.

“They [Fairways & Greens Foundation] took me as soon as I finished college and they have supported me financially on this journey.

“To be honest, without them, this wouldn't have been possible at all. I probably still would have been an amateur last year and just trying to put a good amateur year together to get some funding.”

Colomar will be among Repetto Taylor’s team at Shinnecock, with his Irish-born mother and his girlfriend and former university golfer, Morgan Palermo, who caddied for him at U.S. Open Final Qualifying last month, set to be in the crowd in New York.

Repetto Taylor is one of four Spaniards in the field for the third men’s Major of the year, alongside Ryder Cup star Jon Rahm and DP World Tour winners David Puig and Angel Hidalgo, with the latter also securing his U.S. Open debut through the Walton Heath qualifier.

With the bond between Spanish players particularly close on Tour, he is hopeful the quartet can share a practice round together in the lead up to Thursday’s first round.

“The Spanish guys have been great, very welcoming with open arms and giving me small pieces of advice during practice rounds and all sorts of stuff so far this season,” he said.

“It’s been really nice to get to know everybody, especially some guys who I’ve looked up to, ones who have played on the DP World Tour, played a lot of Majors, and at the Ryder Cup.

“It was definitely pretty cool to get to know everybody and now feel like part of the group, which is also a pretty good feeling.

“I’d love to be able to meet Jon and play a practice round with him and the others.”

Bearing resemblances to a British links course, and famous for its lack of trees, Repetto Taylor is excited about the challenge that awaits at Shinnecock, which is hosting a U.S. Open for the sixth time.

Fourth for strokes gained off the tee so far this season, he is confident his mix of distance and accuracy with the driver – something that stems from a pursuit to build core strength at university – can help his cause.

“It's definitely helped me a lot and something that I hopefully will be relying on in the U.S. Open as well to kind of give me that little extra edge,” he said.

“When I arrived in college, it was the first COVID year. We were practising a lot, but we weren't competing a lot.

“Being a super skinny kid, one of my goals was that I really wanted to put my head down and actually work out a lot, do some heavy weightlifting and to eat a lot.

“I feel like my first year was key because I'd never been able to actually see any gains before that.

“Within two to three months, I'd gained probably about five, six kilos and was actually starting to move in the right direction with my strength training.

“So, I just kept that up for four years and I feel like I gained probably about ten yards every year.

“By the end of my senior year, I was hitting about 40 yards longer than when I arrived.

“So, obviously being in the fairway is going to be super important at a Major.

“I feel like having shorter clubs into those greens is definitely going to be important. It's about finding the right balance between trying to get as far down there and also keeping it in play as much as I can.”

Having been a 15-year student at high school when Shinnecock last staged the U.S. Open in 2018 as Brooks Koepka won for the second consecutive year, Repetto Taylor is pinching himself to now be competing with the best players in the world.