In 1999 Alejandro talked Lorena into joining him for a four-day ecothon. At 17 she was the youngest person in the field of 144 athletes. The final challenge called for a three-mile swim in a lake with water so cold that three teams dropped out because of hypothermia, but Lorena powered her way to the finish line. "My dad, my brothers, they always told me I could do anything," she says. With a laugh, she adds, "if I was tough enough."
This fearlessness has served her well in golf. She first picked up a club when she was five, and for years she was the only girl who played at Guadalajara Country Club. Her mentor was Rafael Alarcon, who knocked around the PGA and Nationwide tours in the 1980s and '90s. Ochoa used to sit at the range and watch, transfixed, as Alarcon hit balls. He began teaching her when she was nine. "When she was 12, Lorena told me she wanted to be the best player in the world," says Alarcon.
The University of Arizona was one step along the way. After a record eight victories in 10 college events as a sophomore, Ochoa turned pro, arriving on the LPGA tour in 2003. Sorenstam was coming off an epic season during which she won 11 times. Ochoa became the heir apparent after taking the rookie of the year award in '03, but she and Sorenstam were as different as fire and ice. Sorenstam's game was a monument to Nordic reserve — precise and plodding, to minimize mistakes. Ochoa's rounds could be set to a mariachi beat, as her attacking and occasionally risky play produced barrages of birdies. But early in her pro career she was also prone to the big mistake. In her first three LPGA seasons she had 36 top 10 finishes yet only three wins.
Ochoa has always been the quintessential feel player. Her quirky swing featured a lot of head movement and an unorthodox rerouting of the club at the top. As she struggled to close out tournaments, there were whispers that the swing couldn't hold up under pressure. An ugly example came at the 2005 U.S. Women's Open, when she arrived at the 72nd tee a stroke off the lead. She uncorked a drop-kicked pull-hook into a pond, leading to a quadruple bogey.
That off-season Ochoa committed to a two-year plan with Alarcon to shorten and tighten her swing. She also redoubled her punishing work in the gym. This made her swing more efficient and reliable without diminishing her trademark athleticism and rhythm. "What I love about Lorena's swing now," says Judy Rankin, a Hall of Fame player and one of the game's most astute announcers, "is that it is uniquely hers, unlike [those of] so many other young players who seem burdened by trying to make someone else's idea of a perfect swing. They are bogged down by mechanics, [but] Lorena simply hits the ball."
And how. At a willowy 5' 6" and 130 pounds, Ochoa has emerged as pound-for-pound the longest hitter in the game. This season she is second on the LPGA tour in driving distance, averaging 271 yards, and the woman ahead of her, by .6 of a yard, is Sophie Gustafson, a powerfully built 5' 10". Says Kim, "That someone can be so creative around the greens and play shots that no one else could even fathom, and then be a great iron player and now [be] 10 yards longer than everybody else? And wear a size zero? It's just not right."
Ochoa's physical gifts are married to a mental toughness forged in extreme sports, and she is well served by an innately sunny outlook that no sports psychologist can teach. Ask her how she overcame all the near misses early in her career and she says, "I remember only the good shots. The others, they disappear."
Veteran Pat Hurst uses the word carefree to describe Ochoa on the golf course. "She has simplified the game so much," says Hurst. "She's making it look so easy, it's silly. Golf is not supposed to be this easy."
As Ochoa has piled up victories, she has found that the hard part of her job is outside the ropes, where she is pulled in so many directions. "To my knowledge she has never said no to anything we've asked," says LPGA commissioner Carolyn Bivens.
It was only a few hours after Ochoa's participation in the ceremony at the Stock Exchange that Sorenstam, 37, rocked the golf world by announcing she was retiring at the end of the season. Beginning next year Ochoa will have to carry the tour pretty much by herself, but she has already steeled herself for that. "I chose to be in this position," she says, "so I accept the responsibilities that come with it." She allows, however, that "it is not always easy, because I am a private person." She is still adjusting to the scrutiny that has come with her four-month-old romance with Andres Conesa, who as CEO of AeroMexico is one of his country's most prominent businessmen.
In announcing her retirement Sorenstam said she is looking forward to building her Annika brand, which already includes a clothing line and a course-design business. Meanwhile Ochoa may be omnipresent in Mexico — in November she will host the inaugural Lorena Ochoa Invitational at Guadalajara Country Club, the third LPGA event to be founded south of the border in recent years — but the tour wants to raise her profile in the U.S. Ochoa is ambivalent about that, saying, "I am happy with what I have now."
Sorenstam's primary reasons for walking away are personal: She is getting married next January and is eager to have children. This has resonated deeply with the family-oriented Ochoa. If she feels an urgency to win the Grand Slam, it is because she has often said that she sees herself playing only 10 seasons or so before she retires to focus on a family of her own. She does not disguise her longing to spend more time at her beach house in San Juan de Alima, a fishing village on the Pacific coast.
"I love golf, I love competing, I love winning," Ochoa says. "I have worked very hard to get to this point, and I am enjoying it. But there will be a time to stop, to concentrate on other things that matter. I look forward to a life that is a little more..." She stares out the window of Willy's town car, searching for the right word. Manhattan is in the rearview mirror, and she is speeding toward a future that holds so much promise. "Simple. I like that word. Yes, simple. That is what I look forward to."
