Healthy Living Sport: lorena ochoa pictures photos and biography

Lorena Ochoa Reyes (born 15 November 1981) is a Mexican professional golfer who played on the U.S.-based LPGA Tour from 2003 to 2010, and was the top-ranked female golfer in the world for over three years, from April 2007 to her retirement in May 2010. As the first Mexican golfer of either gender to be ranked number one in the world, she is considered the best Mexican golfer of all time.

lorena ochoa with trofy

Childhood and amateur careerBorn 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.[3] 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.[9] 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 (NGCA) 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

lorena ochoa

lorena ochoa photos

lorena ochoa picture

Professional careerOchoa 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 (where she became the first Mexican born player to win on the LPGA Tour) 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 number of 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