Can Lorena Be The Tigress She’s Hyped As?
Until last August, Lorena Ochoa might have been compared to Monty rather than Tiger. She’s led Women’s golf since the start of the 2006 season, racking up an impressive 16 victories – just two less than Woods has in the same period. But when she won the Women’s British Open at St Andrews in August, she broke a duck that – if it had continued for another 15 years or so – would have been similar to Monty’s lengthy, yet majorless domination of European golf. But now her name is more often heard in the same breath as Tiger’s, Ochoa has work to do. If she’s going to become the best golfer of her gender that the world has ever seen (as Tiger has every chance to) she’ll need to exorcise some demons, starting at the Kraft Nabisco this weekend.
Tied second going into round two, Lorena is well placed and obviously playing well. But as she found out last year, one bad hole can wreck a day’s, week’s, or even a season’s worth of hard work. As the Masters is only held at Augusta, the Kraft Nabisco is only ever held at Mission Hills, California. Although she loves the course (she enjoys huge support from Mexican flag waving fans there) in the past two seasons she has melted down on the back nine after looking like a safe bet for the win.
But Lorena is only 26 and she’s without doubt a phenomenal talent. If she can overcome the memories of spurned opportunities in recent years, victory in the first major of the season would mean more than just a win for Ochoa. It would be proof that she can exorcise demons and perform to her full capabilities on the biggest stage. St Andrews was proof she could win a major, Mission Hills could be proof that she can win many more.
Can Lorena kick Tiger's tail?
4/4/2008 3:56:06 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00) 
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