Lorena Ochoa - Professional Career

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 (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.

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 2012, after she completes ten seasons on the LPGA Tour.

Ochoa is coached by Rafael Alarcon, a Mexican professional. Alarcon finished second in the 1976 Canadian Amateur Championship, won that title in 1979, then turned professional.