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Audi New Zealand - News and Events |
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Golf's Golden Girl
Lorena Ochoa has made it to the top of the world rankings and was voted Golfer of the Year. Only 25 years young, the Mexican wins prize money in the millions each year.
The club rests in the relaxed grasp of the left hand. Lorena Ochoa gazes down the fairway, closes her grip and prepares to swing. Suddenly her concentration is intensely focused, her body poised like a spring ready to release its energy. The right hand closed below the left guides the club. Her upper arms tense, her feet tread briefly on the spot. A final glance at the target … then a sharp twist of the torso and thwack! An incredibly powerful swing, that’s nevertheless as light as a feather.
If Lorena Ochoa has executed this movement once, she’s done it a million times. The Mexican first picked up a set of clubs at the age of five. She couldn’t bear to see her father and two older brothers head off to the course and leave her behind. Lorena begged and pleaded until she was allowed to join them. “For us boys, it was a real drag to have our baby sister along,” recalls Alejandro who is now 30. “She seemed clumsy and had very little strength. All that’s very different today.”
Today, Lorena Ochoa is 25 years old and the world’s best female golfer. Following a neck-and-neck race with 36-year-old Swede Annika Sörenstam, she’s finally No. 1 on the Women’s World Golf Rankings. She and her male colleague Tiger Woods were both voted Golfer of the Year. Seen from the earnings perspective, Lorena was also sitting pretty atop the Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA) money list last year. She also enjoys pride of place in various other statistical criteria including the scoring average and number of tournaments where she finished among the first ten. So it’s not surprising that her brothers no longer stand a chance against her on the golf course. “Even as a child, I was a perfectionist,” says Lorena. A steely will earned her the respect of the far stronger boys on her home course—where for years she was the only girl playing. With precision acquired through a regime of disciplined training, she played her way from one tournament to the next, ever closer to the top of the log. She tasted her first competitive victory at the tender age of six. From as early as her amateur days, she smashed a series of national and international records, winning five Junior World Championships back to back and, in her final year at college, triumphing in eight out of ten tournaments to garner the Nancy Lopez Award as the best female amateur golfer.
She turned pro in May 2002 and embarked on her first LPGA tour in 2003. Whenever her fingers touched her clubs, the game literally turned to gold. Her financial success was such that in her rookie year she shot into the top ten on the money list, which ranks players according to prize winnings. That also brought the sponsors knocking. Right from her professional debut, Audi has not only backed Lorena Ochoa but also supported her foundation. The Mexican philanthropist helps children from impoverished backgrounds to get a good education. Once again this year, Audi is one of the main sponsors.
“I never imagined that she would go so far,” muses her father Javier Ochoa Cortez. “She was a strong tennis player and a good golfer. Both of her coaches said that she was very talented. Lorena chose golf and I supported her.” For many years, he accompanied his daughter to tournaments, celebrating with her when she won and cheering her up when it didn’t go quite so well—not that that was often the case. Of the 284 competitions she has entered in her career, she took home the trophy in 117 of them, and was one of the three leaders in a further 57.
Today, Javier seldom joins her on her travels but there is still a strong bond between father and daughter. Like the sun coming out from behind the clouds, the energy and tranquility of the good-natured man who laughs easily rubs off on his wunderkind. And today’s no different. After hours spent in front of the camera for a TV commercial, Lorena is tense and exhausted. When her dad comes into the room and, without saying a word, sits down on the couch next to her for a few minutes, the clamped jaw relaxes and her mood lifts. All the while, the two haven’t even exchanged a glance.
Between jetting off to tournaments, Lorena always returns to her native city Guadalajara. With roughly five million inhabitants, it’s Mexico’s second biggest metropolitan area. Guadalajara lies inland on the Mexican highlands, about three hours’ drive from the coast. Despite its size, it’s a provincial centre where everybody knows everybody else. Here, Lorena still lives with her parents in a multi-story apartment block not far from the country club where she took her first swings at a ball. The apartment block has only been the family home for a few weeks now. The reason for the move was security—the apartment building, surrounded by a high wall, is better protected. After all, Lorena’s annual winnings are in the millions.
Lorena Ochoa may be a real celebrity but she lives a pretty normal life in Guadalajara. “This city is my home. The people here have known me since I was little and they treat me as a person and not as a golfer,” explains the prodigy. “That’s why I always come back here.” For Lorena, friends and family serve as an important counterweight to the intense competition in the world of professional sport as well as the many business relationships—with fans, sponsors, journalists, stars and starlets—that she needs to assiduously cultivate in her career. “Attending cocktail parties, receptions and press conferences is part and parcel of my job,” says Lorena. “I can’t just decide to skip them because I feel tired. You’ve got to take the whole package and not just the icing on the cake.” At least you do if you’re as disciplined as Lorena Ochoa—something of which her brother and manager Alejandro is proud: “Other players are much slacker but Lorena has a strict schedule she always sticks to. That’s part of what makes her a success.”
The schedule also has it rewards—such as the built-in leisure time. Like all professional managers, Alejandro knows the importance of striking a balance between career and private life. “Lorena needs sufficient downtime to allow her to clear her head.” Finding that equilibrium between pushing yourself and recharging, between meeting others’ demands and your own needs is a challenge faced by all top athletes. Last year Lorena took up yoga. “It helps me to manage my stress levels and find my own inner peace.”
Physically, Lorena hardly has to exert herself playing golf. Her strength can be summoned at will and the precision mechanics of her body are always ready to spring into action, to release a surge of energy in an instant. Yet she is petite—only 1.68 metres tall—and appears even smaller. Not the picture of muscle-bound strength training. Instead the golfer has a supple, lithe figure. Nowhere is there too much or too little of anything. Her power is subtle but unmistakable.
The 2007 season has started well for Lorena. She came in fourth at her first tournament, the SBS Open in Turtle Bay, and won the Safeway International in Arizona. Next came the Kraft Nabisco Championship in California at the end of March—a major. A major in golf is similar to a grand slam in tennis. These are the most important competitions and there are four of them in a year. Lorena focused her ambitions on this event because leading the field in a major is a feather she didn’t yet have in her cap. At first it seemed the tournament belonged to Lorena. “I played well,” she recalls. “But then I made one bad stroke, just one, single bad stroke. That was all it took to put me four or five shots behind and there was no way to catch up again.” She’s quite matter of fact about the whole episode, there’s no annoyance in her voice. Isn’t it infuriating that an 18-year-old newcomer took the crown and she only finished tenth? Lorena winces a bit, then smiles and says, “That’s just golf. You have good days and bad.” At the following tournament, the Ginn Open in Florida, she returns to form as runner-up.
Fitness and technique are key in professional golf. Yet what separates the world-class players from the rest is mental fortitude. “Seventy-five percent of the time, that’s the difference between winning and losing,” explains Lorena. Being patient. Moving on after making a mistake. Controlling adrenaline levels. Deciding what shots to play—and in Lorena’s case, doing so without hesitation and without over-rationalisation. “I’m a ‘feel’ player,” she says but quickly adds, as if afraid to sound too airy-fairy, “But I’m also very aggressive and very methodical.” After each match, she gets together with her coach Rafael Alarcón to analyse her game—what went well and what not so well. Were there any technical, psychological or communication problems? “Then I know what to work on to improve.”
But how do you improve your mental resilience? It’s quite simple really: “I have to be happy to play well,” says Lorena. The problem with happiness is, it’s not something you can force. For the Mexican, the central pillars are the support of her family and her faith in God. The devout catholic has what she refers to as a “spiritual counsellor,” a nun whom Lorena has known since she was ten years old. With this woman of the cloth, she can pour out her latest troubles and fears but also discuss the fundamental questions of life. “I am very fortunate, very privileged,” comments Lorena. “And I’m grateful for that.”
So when was the last time she did something really crazy? Lorena reflects for a good while. “Hmm,” she says, “I once did an ‘EcoThon’ with my brother.” An EcoThon comprises several different sports including kayaking, mountain biking, running, abseiling and a five-kilometre swim, all spread over several days. There aren’t many women that complete an EcoThon. At the mention of craziness, other girls’ minds would leap to an insanely expensive pair of pumps they bought that don’t go with anything in their wardrobes. But shoes, jewellery and shopping are not Lorena’s scene, she’s too natural and down to earth for that. She doesn’t usually even bother with “barely-there” makeup. And her curly shoulder length hair, which has earned her the nickname “La China” (Indian woman), simply gets swept up into a ponytail.
The sleek luxury of her red Audi S4, in contrast, is something the sportswoman certainly enjoys. As important as golf may be to Lorena Ochoa, she can also imagine a different life for herself. One in which she has the traditional role of mother. Lorena adores children—she would even give up professional sport for them. Not yet, of course, but maybe in a few years’ time … At the moment, she doesn’t even have a boyfriend. “But I’m in the market for one,” she says with a mischievous smile.
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