Early last season, Lorena Ochoa was having a strategic meeting with her caddie
to identify targets and incentives for the months ahead. Uninspired by the
proposed game plan, she hit upon an idea. “I’m worried about your kids,” she
said. “I want them to go to heaven. How many wins will it take for you to
have them baptised?”
Dave Brooker, an Englishman who had barely set foot in church, had worked with
Ochoa for more than six months, long enough to know that it wasn’t a joke.
He thought for a moment - about their four wins in eight tournaments
together and about the certainty of more to come - before offering his own
proposition. “One win,” he replied. “As long as I get to choose which one.”
Ochoa consented. Brooker picked the Women’s British Open. The rest is history.
She won on the Old Course at St Andrews, he lost the bet and his two
daughters, aged three and one, were baptised in Connecticut last September.
For the little Mexican, who will defend her title at Sunningdale this week,
winning is not an end in itself, but a means by which she can change
people’s lives. Although she has been the world No 1 for 15 months and won
two major titles and more than $12m in prize-money, the 26-year-old who
dominates women’s golf is driven not by fame, fortune or even success, but
by the influence that all three combine to bring her.
As well as introducing golf to the Mexican masses, her money is funding the
construction of schools for marginalised children, and her deeply religious
views have shaped a personality that she hopes can be an example to others.
“I play golf for a reason,” she says. “To be able to reach other people. I’m
very fortunate to have an image that allows me to do that. The more
tournaments I win, the more I can help. If you can change one person’s life,
it is worth it. If you change more and more . . . well, that’s what I’m
trying to do. I want to give to the people who don’t have.”
In Mexico, her Tiger-like start to this season, when she won five of her first
six events, has stimulated interest where there was none. The country has a
population of 105m, with only 18,000 golfers and fewer than 200 courses, all
of them private. Ochoa Golf Academies are intended to change all that, while
a new LPGA Tour event, the Lorena Ochoa Invitational, will be held there in
November.
The Lorena Ochoa Foundation transcends sport. Its first school, built in the
impoverished outskirts of her home town, Guadalajara, encloses a statue of
the Virgin Mary and uses alternative methods, such as music and theatre, to
inspire nearly 300 children. Another school is to open nearby in the autumn.
“Education is the only way to teach them values,” she explains. “It’s the
only way to make them a better son, a better daughter, a better father, or
mother. You want them to feel worth it, even if they grew up in a hard
place.”
Ochoa is passionate about her country. She has been known to cook breakfast
for Hispanic greenkeepers at LPGA Tour events, she demands that sponsors
contribute in some way to her homeland and she has worked on a range of
projects with the Mexican president, Felipe Calderon.
Annika Sorenstam, Ochoa’s predecessor as world No 1, will be trying to win her
11th major at Sunningdale this week, the last she will enter before
retiring, but according to Brooker, the Swede’s legacy will be dwarfed by
Ochoa’s.
“As good as Annika has been for the game, Lorena is changing a country,” he
says. “Building schools, giving kids an education: it’s not just about
getting the ball in the hole. You wouldn’t believe how popular she is in
Mexico. From the moment you arrive at the airport, it seems like she is on
every billboard. Many people there don’t have access to television, but they
know this girl is special.
“She is the girl that does this,” he adds, pretending to swing a golf club,
“even if they don’t know what ‘this’ is. The Mexicans understand that she is
not doing it for herself, she is doing it for them. When she wins, they win.”
Ochoa is from a close-knit family. She keeps a photograph of them in her golf
bag. Her brother Alejandro is her manager, and the recent loss of her
grandfather and uncle within a few weeks of each other left her “emotionally
unbalanced”. Her plan is to give up competitive golf within five years and
have children. “Life is too short,” she says. “It’s not just about golf. I
don’t want to be too old when I get married, start a family and do my work
in Mexico.”
Ochoa, the third of four children, was educated in Catholic schools, spent the
weekends distributing food to Guadalajara’s poor communities and taught
people to pray. She is still spreading the word, without preaching it: “I
don’t think talking about it is the best way. It’s about letting people see
for themselves what kind of person you are. Then, if they talk about you,
maybe they will ask about it.”
In May, Time magazine listed her among the world’s 100 most influential
people. Her common touch is widely appreciated, be it when she eschews the
sponsor’s courtesy car for a public shuttle bus, or when she chats freely
with her playing partner on a Sunday afternoon. Brooker, a former footballer
who played against Ryan Giggs and Nick Barmby as a schoolboy with Leeds
United, says that she makes him want to be a better person. “I’ve never been
around someone who is more humbling,” he says. “When she meets people, she
is the one asking the questions. She doesn’t want the conversation to be
about herself. The rookies all want to play with her because there is none
of the distance that some superstars put between themselves and the rest.”
Ochoa’s only distance is off the tee, as suggested by the Superman logo on her
clubhead cover. In her four-shot victory at St Andrews last year, she
demonstrated flair and imagination, but more than that, a swing that is,
pound for pound, the most powerful in the game. Standing just 5ft 6in tall
and weighing only 9st, she drives the ball up to 290 yards, despite a
trademark tilt of the head not found in the textbooks.
She pushes herself to the limit. At the University of Arizona she often
preceded the 6.30am conditioning session for the women’s team with a 10km
run. One of the many endurance races she has featured in was an ecothon
(running, mountain biking, kayaking, swimming and abseiling), which included
a 5km swim through an icy lake. At 17, she was the youngest ofa 144-strong
field, many of whom pulled out with hypothermia.
“Five sports, three days, 10 hours every day,” she recalls. “I love that
feeling of keeping going, of not giving up. To finish that competition was
more exciting than anything.”
She and her family frequently retreat to Tapalpa, a town in the Sierra Madre
mountain range, which feeds her love of the outdoors, particularly climbing.
She has scaled Mount Iztaccihuatl (17,343ft) and Mount Fuji (12,388ft),
while her brother has been to the peak of Everest. “I love it because it
forces you to push yourself,” Ochoa says. “It makes you strong in the head.
If you don’t challenge yourself, you don’t know how far you can go. If you
are going to run 35 minutes, why not run 45 minutes? Don’t just say you can
do it, do it. I always like to prove it, so that when you are in a bad
situation, you have that extra something. Without the mind, the body only
goes so far.”
This month President Calderon replaced a 1791 time capsule discovered in
Mexico City’s Metropolitan Cathedral with a new one containing messages from
novelist Carlos Fuentes, Nobel chemistry laureate Mario Molina and Ochoa. In
life, as well as sport, she will go on and on.
TV DETAILS
Women’s British Open
1pm Thursday BBC2
Ochoa’s route to the top
- Ochoa succeeded Annika Sorenstam as world No 1 last year
- The 26-year-old Mexican has won two majors - she is the defending Women’s
British Open champion and won the Kraft Nabisco earlier this season
- Ochoa joined the LPGA Tour in 2003 and already has 23 tournament wins to her
credit - she has qualified for the Hall of Fame but cannot be inducted until
2012, when she has completed 10 seasons on tour
- In 2006, her first round score of 62 in the Kraft Nabisco tied the record
for the lowest score ever by a golfer, male or female, in any major
- In 2007, Ochoa became the first woman to earn more than $4m in a season and
she has already won more than $2m this year
- Ochoa has won six times in 2008
- She won her first tournament, the 2004 Franklin American Mortgage
Championship, on the day her brother Alejandro reached the summit of Mount
Everest
- Although she is just 5ft 6in and weighs 9st, Ochoa is one of the longest
hitters on the LPGA Tour.
