MEXICO CITY, Mexico (AP) — From a leafy golf course in Mexico's second-largest, sprawling city, Lorena Ochoa has willed her way to the top of the women's game, drawing millions of new fans to an increasingly international sport.
In Mexico, admirers point to "the Lorena effect" to explain how the world's No. 1 female golfer is putting the sport on the map in a country where green fees are often five times the average daily wage and soccer rules hearts.
"She's an icon," said Hector Juarez, editor of the Mexico City-based magazine Caras Golf. "Most people in Mexico don't know what golf really is, but they know Lorena Ochoa. That's a huge gain. She's giving golf massive exposure."
Ochoa, one of 120 active international players on the tour, tees off Friday at the MasterCard Classic in Huixquilucan, Mexico, the first of three LPGA events in the country. Without her, odds are Mexico would not have any LPGA events. One of them is the Lorena Ochoa Invitational. The only other living player whose name is the title of the tournament is Arnold Palmer.
The 26-year-old Ochoa is just establishing her dominance in her sixth LPGA season, replacing Annika Sorenstam as the world's top player last April. Ochoa won her first major, the British Open, in August and set a record for season tournament earnings with nearly $4.4 million last year.
Two weeks ago at the HSBC Women's Champions tournament in Singapore, their only meeting this season so far, Ochoa buried Sorenstam by 11 strokes, shooting 20 under par. Sorenstam is not competing this weekend in Mexico.
Ochoa, who grew up with her brothers on a Guadalajara golf course, is known as much for her grace as her game.
"Lorena sets a best-of-class example of not just how to be a great athlete, but how to be a great human being," LPGA Commissioner Carolyn Bivens said. "Lorena has given much more to the game than she has taken."
Ochoa is one of the youngest golfers to start her own philanthropic foundation, adopting an elementary school for 241 low-income children near her hometown. Foundation director Carmen Bolio credits Ochoa for increasing the number of donors through the "Lorena effect."
Ochoa and her brother Alejandro, who is her manager, also have opened two golf academies and plan three more this year to train and certify instructors and help students access the country's cloistered greens.
"We're interested in growing golf in Mexico in every sense: in the number of players, the number of people who follow it on television, the number of golf courses," Alejandro Ochoa said.
Mexico counts 108 million people, but just 50,000 golfers and about 220 courses, according to the Mexican Golf Federation, compared to some 16,000 courses in the United States. About a quarter of the Mexican courses are at tourist resorts, and nearly all others are private, with membership often topping $10,000.
Still, more prospects are earning NCAA scholarships, and junior golf participation has swelled 25 percent since 2006 in central Mexico, according to the federation.
