Lorena Ochoa is heading to the Hall of Fame…
The 40-year-old Mexican former professional golfer is getting a spot in the Ladies Professional Golf Association’s LPGA Hall of Fame along with eight of the organization’s founders.
The LPGA announced modifications to its Hall of Fame criteria on Tuesday, which includes lifting the requirement that players complete 10 years on the tour.
LPGA players earn two points for a major and one point for a win or major award. The requirement for its Hall of Fame is 27 points, 10 years on tour and one major or award. Ochoa had 37 points but played only seven years before retiring to start a family.
Ochoa, who played on the LPGA Tour from 2003 to 2010, was the top-ranked female golfer in the world for 158 consecutive and total weeks (both are LPGA Tour records), from 23 April 2007 to her retirement on 2 May 2010, at the age of 28.
As the first Mexican golfer of either gender to be ranked number one in the world, she is considered the best Mexican golfer and the best Latin American female golfer of all time.
Ochoa had previously been inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame in 2017.
The LPGA also is inducting the remaining eight founders — five previously made it into its Hall of Fame — through the honorary category. They are Alice Bauer, Bettye Danoff, Helen Dettweiler, Helen Hicks, Opal Hill, Sally Sessions, Marilyn Smith and Shirley Spork, the one still alive. T
he LPGA was founded in 1950.
Smith previously was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame.
The LPGA’s Hall of Fame committee also decided to award a point for an Olympic gold medal retroactive to the 2016 Rio Games. Inbee Park, already in the LPGA Hall of Fame, won in 2016 in Rio de Janeiro and Nelly Korda won last summer in Tokyo.
