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LEONARD SHAPIRO
“Hey-lo everybody.”
And now, sadly, it’s time to say good-bye
to Lorena Ochoa, who began every press
conference of her exemplary eight-year
professional career by offering a charming-
ly accented hello to everyone in the room,
then always without fail added a polite
“thank you” when each session ended.
A week ago last
Friday, Ochoa, a native
of Guadalajara, Mexico,
held a news conference
to explain why she had
decided to retire from
the LPGA Tour at age
28, even though she
is currently the No.
1-ranked female golfer in the world and
still very much capable of dominating her
game. This week, she played in the Tres
Marias Championship in Morelia, Mexico,
her farewell appearance as a regular LPGA
player and finished sixth.
In more than 40 years of writing about
sports for a living, most of the last 20 on
the golf beat, I can honestly say that with
the possible exception of Jack Nicklaus,
I’ve never met a more gracious, world-
class athlete than Lorena Ochoa.
Tres Marias tournament officials asked
her who she’d like to play with Thursday
and Friday, and her choice of partners, as
usual, spoke volumes – Natalie Gulbis,
once her teammate at the University of
Lorena Ochoa
Arizona and a close friend, and Japan’s
Ai Miyazato. Ochoa described Miyazato as
“the nicest girl on Tour,” though I’d beg to
disagree. Ochoa held that distinction from
the day she played in her first event, and,
contrary to the old Leo Durocher bromide,
nice guys (and girls) definitely aren’t al-
ways doomed to finish last.
Nancy Lopez once said that “when you
meet (Ochoa) for the second time and she
remembers not only your name, but also
the slightest detail of the last time you
spoke, you understand how exceptional this
young woman is.”
As a player, it was about as exceptional
as it ever gets. From 2006-09, Ochoa won
24 LPGA tournaments, two of them major
championships, and finished second 15
times. Over those years, Tiger Woods won
25 PGA Tour events, including four majors,
with eight runner-up finishes.
In the months since his Nov. 27 accident
and his ensuing fall from personal and
commercial grace, virtually every develop-
ment in Woods’ life was fodder for front-
page, lead-story at 6 and 11 coverage.
Ochoa’s farewell press conference in
Mexico City 10 days ago merited only a
few paragraphs in most Saturday papers
around the U.S., with a short highlight clip
in the middle of ESPN’s SportsCenter that
Friday night. She was simply overshadowed
by the all-consuming NFL draft, hockey
and basketball playoffs and Major League
Baseball in full swing. And yet, here was
an athlete at the very peak of her skills
leaving a sport she had dominated for most
of the last five years, somewhat akin to the
early retirements of NFL running back Jim
Brown or baseball pitcher Sandy Koufax,
who walked away relatively healthy and in
the prime of their athletic lives.
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