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Maintaining Links to Her Heritage

By Leonard Shapiro

As Lorena Ochoa marched toward her first victory of the 2006 season in Las Vegas in mid-April, she also made it a point to walk off the beaten cart path to shake hands and say thank you to a number of Mexican construction workers who had hung a banner from the condominium they were building wishing her buena suerte -- good luck.

Last month, when she won the Sybase Classic at Wykagyl Country Club in the New York suburbs, a group of golf course workers from Ochoa's hometown of Guadalajara, Mexico, left their jobs at the nearby Ardsley Golf Club just in time to cheer her on as she finished her final round.

After she had turned in her scorecard, she stopped and greeted them all, posing for pictures and signing every last autograph request.

Here at Newport Country Club, which hosts the U.S. Women's Open starting Thursday morning, Ochoa played a soggy practice round on a rain-soaked course Tuesday, and frequently stopped to talk with members of the maintenance crew, many of them Mexicans, as they worked feverishly to push puddles of water off the fairways and greens.

At almost every tournament she enters, Ochoa seeks out her countrymen and tells them how much she appreciates their efforts. There are rarely any cameras or microphones around. It's not about the publicity or getting her picture in the local papers or the golf magazines. Ochoa, 24, simply knows where she comes from and has no qualms about showing gratitude to the people who make it possible for her to thrive in her chosen sport.

"There are a lot of good people that work really hard to live here and to maintain their family," she said recently. "We appreciate that. I really am proud to be a Mexican, and I see them working so hard for me. If I play some good golf, I hope I can also give them some joy."

Though only about 18,000 of Mexico's 107 million residents play golf, Ochoa's exploits -- going back to her college days at the University of Arizona -- have made her one of the nation's most popular and visible athletes.

"In Mexico, the masses don't even know what golf is," said Rafael Alarcon, another Mexican professional golfer. "But if you ask any taxi driver in Mexico City, he'll know who Lorena Ochoa is."

This year, she's the leading money winner on the LPGA Tour, with two victories and five second-place finishes, including runner-up at the season's first major championship, the Kraft Nabisco, when she eagled her final hole to get in a playoff she eventually lost to champion Karrie Webb.

Ochoa, ranked No. 3 in the world, won the next week in Las Vegas, was runner-up in her next three tournaments and then won again at Sybase. She also contended at the LPGA Championship two weeks ago in Havre de Grace, Md., where she finished tied for ninth, and was tied for sixth last week in Rochester, N.Y.

"I think everybody would have thought this was going to happen," said Annika Sorenstam, the world's top-ranked player.

"She's won before this year, and all of a sudden she comes out really strong. I don't think it surprises anybody. She's a great athlete, with a great touch around the greens. It was just a matter of time, really."

Ochoa grew up in a house about 50 yards from the front entrance to the Guadalajara Country Club, where her father, Javier, a local realtor, began taking her when she was only 5. At first, young Lorena reveled in simply helping her father, a 15 handicapper, steer his cart, but not long after she picked up her first club, it became obvious she was a natural. She also has pursued other sports -- tennis, volleyball, swimming -- and has even competed in half-marathons and triathlons during the offseason.

She won countless local and national Mexican junior golf titles and was one of the most successful collegiate players in her two years at Arizona, where she won a dozen tournaments and never was more than three shots out of the lead in any event she entered. As a sophomore, she won eight straight times, an NCAA record, with an average margin of victory of five strokes.

That success continued when she joined the LPGA in 2003, earning rookie of the year that season, won twice in 2004 and again in 2005. She's missed only four cuts in 87 events over the past four seasons, and 32 of her 46 rounds this year have been under par, including an opening 62 at Kraft Nabisco.

At the 2005 Open at Cherry Hills in Denver, Ochoa came to her 72nd hole on Sunday just one shot off the lead when she pulled a three-wood for her tee shot. With her worst swing of the week, she hit a high pop fly that landed in a lake and led to a quadruple-bogey 8. That shot cost her a chance for her first major championship, but instead of allowing such a devastating error to shatter her psyche, she's responded this season with the best golf of her life.

"I'm the type of player that I try not to be too hard on myself," she said. "When it comes to situations like that, boom, it happens. I always try to take a positive out of that situation. A lot of players said, 'Oh, don't worry, I made an 11, I made an 8.' All the good players, things like that happen. I tried to put it in good perspective. I want to win this tournament just as badly. It's a good way to do things.

"Just because of what happened last year in the U.S. Open, I really learned a lot. That's the number one thing. I know that's a mistake that will not happen on the 18th hole. It's really just experience, getting more mature and seeing everything in a positive way. I learned from that."

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