Lorena Ochoa


Lorena Ochoa Reyes is a former Mexican professional golfer who played on the U.S.-based LPGA Tour from 2003 to 2010. She was the top-ranked female golfer in the world for 158 consecutive and total weeks, from 23 April 2007 to her retirement in 2 May 2010, at the age of 28 years old. As the first Mexican golfer of either gender to be ranked number one in the world, she is considered the best Mexican golfer and the best Latin American female golfer of all time. Ochoa was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame in 2017.

Childhood and amateur career

Born and raised in Guadalajara, Ochoa was the third of four children of a real estate developer and an artist. She took up golf at the age of five, won her first state event at the age of six, and her first national event at seven.
An 11-year-old Ochoa approached the professional Rafael Alarcon, 1979 winner of the Canadian Amateur Championship, as he worked on his game at Guadalajara Country Club, where her family lived near the 10th tee. She asked him if he would help her with her game. Alarcon asked her what her goal was, "She said she wanted to be the best player in the world."
As a junior, she captured 22 state events in Guadalajara and 44 national events in Mexico. She won five consecutive titles at the Junior World Golf Championships and in 2000 she enrolled at the University of Arizona in the U.S. on a golf scholarship, where she was a teammate of fellow freshman Natalie Gulbis. While a student in Tucson, Ochoa received regular tutoring and greatly improved her English by watching movies and reading magazines between practice and tournaments.
She was very successful in women's collegiate golf in the next two years, winning the NCAA Player of the Year Awards for 2001 and 2002, finishing runner-up at both the 2001 and 2002 NCAA National Championship and being named to the National Golf Coaches Association 2001 All-America First team. She won the 2001 Pac-10 Women's Golf Championships, was named Pac-10 Freshman/Newcomer of the Year 2001 and was All-Pac-10 First team in 2001 and 2002.
In her sophomore year she had eight tournament wins in ten events she entered and set an NCAA record with seven consecutive victories in her first seven events. She won the Golfstat Cup in both 2001 and 2002. The Cup is given to the player who has the best scoring average versus par with at least 20 full rounds played during a season. setting the single-season NCAA scoring average record as a freshman at 71.33 and beating her own record the next year by just over a stroke per round with a 70.13 average.
In November 2001, Ochoa was presented with Mexico's National Sports Award by Mexican President Vicente Fox. She was the youngest person and first golfer to receive Mexico's highest sporting accolade. In 2006, she was named NCAA Division I Women's Golf Most Outstanding Student Athlete, an award which was bestowed as part of the 25th Anniversary of Women's Championships celebration, taking into account outstanding performances over the past 25 years. She was the recipient of the 2003 Nancy Lopez Award, which is presented annually to the world's most outstanding female amateur golfer.
Nancy Lopez describes Ochoa off the golf course: "When you meet her for the second time she remembers not only your name, but also the slightest detail from the last time you spoke."

Professional career

Ochoa left college after her second year to turn professional, then won three of ten events played on the 2002 Futures Tour, and topped its money list to earn membership on the LPGA Tour for the 2003 season. She was also Duramed FUTURES Tour Player of the Year.
In her rookie season on the LPGA Tour in 2003, she had eight top-10 finishes, including runner-up finishes at the Wegmans Rochester and Michelob Light Open at Kingsmill, ending the season as the Louise Suggs Rolex Rookie of the Year and ninth on the LPGA official money list. In 2004, she won her first two LPGA Tour titles: the Franklin American Mortgage Championship and the Wachovia LPGA Classic. That same year she placed in the top ten in three of the four major championships.
In 2005, Ochoa won the Wegmans Rochester LPGA. In 2006, her first round score of 62 in the Kraft Nabisco Championship tied the record for lowest score ever by a golfer, male or female, in any major tournament. Her playoff loss to Karrie Webb marked her best finish until 2007 in an LPGA major. By the end of the year she won six tournaments, topped the money list and claimed her first LPGA Tour Player of the Year award which goes to the player who gains the most points throughout the season based on a formula in which points are awarded for top-10 finishes and are doubled at the LPGA's four major championships and at the season-ending ADT Championship. She also won the LPGA Vare Trophy for lowest scoring average on the LPGA Tour.
Her achievements were recognized outside the sport of golf when Ochoa won the 2006 Associated Press Female Athlete of the Year award and received the National Sports Prize for the second time.
In April 2007, Ochoa overtook Annika Sörenstam to become the world number one ranked golfer.
In August 2007, Ochoa won her first major championship at the historic home of golf, the Old Course at St Andrews, with a wire-to-wire win by four shots at the Women's British Open. She won the next two LPGA events, the CN Canadian Women's Open and the Safeway Classic, the first to win three consecutive events since Sörenstam in 2005.
Also in 2007, Ochoa became the first woman ever to earn more than $4,000,000 in a single season, surpassing Sörenstam's previous record of $2,863,904.
In April 2008, Ochoa won her second major championship, this time at the Kraft Nabisco Championship, becoming the first golfer to win consecutive LPGA majors since Sörenstam in 2005. She celebrated this victory in the traditional fashion for the Kraft Nabisco by jumping into the pond on the 18th green. The following week, she won the Corona Championship in her home country by 11 strokes. This gave her the final tournament win she needed to qualify for the World Golf Hall of Fame, although she cannot be inducted until she completes ten seasons on the LPGA Tour.
Ochoa was coached by Rafael Alarcon, a Mexican professional. Alarcon finished second in the 1976 Canadian Amateur Championship, won that title in 1979, then turned professional.

Retirement

On 20 April 2010, Ochoa released a statement indicating her intent to retire from professional golf. At a press conference held in Mexico City on 23 April 2010, Ochoa said her last tournament would be the 2010 Tres Marias Championship to be played from 29 April through 2 May. She said that her career plan had always been to play for "around ten years" and to be the number 1 ranked player in the world. She also said:
I just want to be honest with all of you. I went to Asia, and after two or three days of being in Thailand, it was really easy to me – it was really clear to see that I didn't want to be out there, you know. I just was thinking of other things. I wanted to get home. I wanted to start working on the foundation. I wanted to be here close to my family.

Ochoa said she would still maintain her membership in the LPGA and would play in the Lorena Ochoa Invitational and "I'm going to leave the door open in case I want to come back in one or two years to play a U.S. Open or a Kraft Nabisco."
Ochoa made a limited return to competitive golf in 2012, having been invited by her sponsor, Lacoste, to compete in the Lacoste Ladies Open de France, an event on the Ladies European Tour. Ochoa finished the event in T22, 13 shots behind the winner Stacey Keating. Ochoa also announced she would compete in the 2012 edition of her own event, the Lorena Ochoa Invitational.

Tournament host

In November 2008, she became the host of a new annual LPGA event, the Lorena Ochoa Invitational, held at her original home course, Guadalajara Country Club. Proceeds from the tournament help support the Lorena Ochoa Foundation.

Personal life

Lorena Ochoa's successes fuel the family business, the Ochoa Group in Guadalajara, managed by her brother Alejandro Ochoa.
Lorena Ochoa is represented by the Ochoa Sports Management, along with Alarcon and Sophia Sheridan, a Mexican golfer who plays on the LPGA's developmental tour. The Ochoas are confident the list will expand as they attempt to grow the game in Mexico through Ochoa Golf Academies, created by Lorena, Alejandro and Alarcon.
Ochoa Sports Management also operates the LPGA Corona Championship, an annual tour stop in Morelia, Mexico; and the Lorena Ochoa Invitational.
The Lorena Ochoa Foundation operates La Barranca, a primary school in Guadalajara with 250 underprivileged students and an innovative curriculum. In 2008, the foundation opened a high school with 21 freshmen students. The plan, according to foundation director Carmen Bolio, is to add a new class each year and then construct a high school building that's separate from the primary school. She became engaged to her boyfriend Andrés Conesa Labastida, CEO of Aeroméxico, and they married in December 2009. In April 2011, Ochoa announced she was pregnant with the couple's first child. As of mid-2017, she has 3 children.

Professional wins (30)

LPGA Tour (27)

No.DateTournamentWinning scoreMargin of
victory		Runner-up
116 May 2004Franklin American Mortgage Championship−16 1 stroke Wendy Ward
229 Aug 2004Wachovia LPGA Classic−19 2 strokes Grace Park
319 Jun 2005Wegmans Rochester LPGA−15 4 strokes Paula Creamer
415 Apr 2006LPGA Takefuji Classic−19 3 strokes Seon Hwa Lee
521 May 2006Sybase Classic−5 2 strokes Kyeong Bae
Hee-Won Han
627 Aug 2006Wendy's Championship for Children−24 3 strokes Jee Young Lee
Stacy Prammanasudh
78 Oct 2006Corona Morelia Championship−20 5 strokes Julieta Granada
815 Oct 2006Samsung World Championship−16 2 strokes Annika Sörenstam
912 Nov 2006The Mitchell Company Tournament of Champions−21 10 strokes Paula Creamer
Juli Inkster
1025 Mar 2007Safeway International−18 2 strokes Suzann Pettersen
1120 May 2007Sybase Classic−18 3 strokes Sarah Lee
1224 Jun 2007Wegmans LPGA−8 Playoff In-Kyung Kim
135 Aug 2007Ricoh Women's British Open−5 4 strokes Maria Hjorth
Jee Young Lee
1419 Aug 2007CN Canadian Women's Open−16 3 strokes Paula Creamer
1526 Aug 2007Safeway Classic−12 5 strokes Sophie Gustafson
Christina Kim
Mhairi McKay
Inbee Park
1614 Oct 2007Samsung World Championship−18 4 strokes Mi-Hyun Kim
1718 Nov 2007ADT Championship−4 2 strokes Natalie Gulbis
182 Mar 2008HSBC Women's Champions−20 11 strokes Annika Sörenstam
1930 Mar 2008Safeway International−22 7 strokes Jee Young Lee
206 Apr 2008Kraft Nabisco Championship−11 5 strokes Suzann Pettersen
Annika Sörenstam
2113 Apr 2008Corona Championship−25 11 strokes Song-Hee Kim
2220 Apr 2008Ginn Open−18 3 strokes Yani Tseng
2318 May 2008Sybase Classic−10 1 stroke Na Yeon Choi
Sophie Gustafson
Brittany Lang
Catriona Matthew
Morgan Pressel
2428 Sep 2008Navistar LPGA Classic−15 Playoff Cristie Kerr
Candie Kung
251 Mar 2009Honda LPGA Thailand−14 3 strokes Hee Young Park
2626 Apr 2009Corona Championship−25 1 stroke Suzann Pettersen
274 Oct 2009Navistar LPGA Classic−18 4 strokes Brittany Lang
Michelle Wie

LPGA Tour playoff record
No.YearTournamentOpponentResult
12005Safeway International Annika SörenstamLost with par on first extra hole
22006SBS Open at Turtle Bay Joo Mi Kim
Soo Young Moon		Kim won with birdie on second extra hole
Ochoa eliminated with birdie on first hole
32006Kraft Nabisco Championship Karrie WebbLost to birdie on first extra hole
42007Ginn Tribute Hosted by Annika Nicole CastraleLost to par on first extra hole
52007Wegmans LPGA In-Kyung KimWon with par on second extra hole
62007Longs Drugs Challenge Suzann PettersenLost to birdie on second extra hole
72008Navistar LPGA Classic Cristie Kerr
Candie Kung		Won with par on second extra hole
Kerr eliminated with par on first hole

Futures Tour (3)

Futures Tour playoff record
No.YearTournamentOpponentResult
12002Hewlett-Packard Garden State FUTURES Summer Classic Christina KimLost to birdie on sixth extra hole

Major championships

Wins (2)

Results timeline

LA = low amateur

CUT = missed the half-way cut

WD = withdrew

"T" = tied

Summary

1 The first three events of 2002 were played as an amateur; missed cut was an injury withdrawal prior to 2nd round of the 2002 U.S. Women's Open.
2 Ochoa was not included in the final 2010 scoring average rankings; her final event was in early May.

Futures Tour summary

Honors and awards

2001
2002
2003
2006
Female Player of the Year
2007
Female Player of the Year
2008
Female Player of the Year
2009
2011
Amateur
Professional