Biography

Nancy Lopez - World Golf Hall of Fame: Year Inducted: 1987               

Nancy Lopez is the only player to win the Rookie of the Year Award, Player of the Year Award and Vare Trophy in the same season (1978).     The year was 1978, and the Ladies Professional Golf Association was suffering an identity crisis. From Roswell, N.M., came an unidentified flying star, a Mexican-American girl whose father owned an auto-body shop. She won the state amateur when she was 12, two U.S. Girls' Junior titles, an NCAA title, and, in 1975, she finished second in the U.S. Women's Open. If this wasn't the savior, then only God knows who was.        

Her name was Nancy Lopez, and it wasn't long before everybody just called her Nancy. She won five consecutive tournaments in 1978, and everybody sort of hitched a ride on her skirt tails: the press, the fans, the sponsors, even the rest of the women playing the sport. These were magical times for women's golf, and nobody seemed to want to get in her way.         

She won nine times that year, including the LPGA Championship, eight times in 1979 and she was the nicest person in the world. "After my first year I thought, 'I could be a flash in the pan,' and I was also determined to prove I was not," Lopez has said. "I was determined not to fall on my face, though it is easy enough to choke yourself to death trying to win."         

Looking back on these years Jaime Diaz wrote in Sports Illustrated that Lopez had burst on the scene with as much charisma as anyone since Babe Didrikson Zaharias.            

Not even Zaharias had become a legend so fast. She was all of 21 years old, and the veterans marveled not only at her golfing ability, but her poise and maturity.       

"Never in my life have I seen such control from someone so young," said Mickey Wright.         

 "They've got the wrong person playing Wonder Woman," said Judy Rankin. "We're all trying to steal Nancy's birth-control pills, but so far we've been unsuccessful," said JoAnne Carner.           

After marrying baseball star Ray Knight, she struggled balancing her career with motherhood. By the time she was 30, Nancy Lopez still had won enough tournaments (35) to qualify for the LPGA Hall of Fame. At that point, she was Player of the Year three times, Vare Trophy winner three times and her stroke average in 1985 of 70.73 was then an LPGA record.          

Lopez had the ability to close. She was the youngest qualifier for the LPGA Hall of Fame and had to wait six months to be inducted as the rules for admission required that a player be on tour for 10 years. "I feel honored to be with the other women in the Hall of Fame," Lopez said. "I have always respected them and what they have done for women's golf. I look at each player, and some are already legends while others will become legends as time goes by. I feel I'm great now, being in the Hall of Fame, having accomplished what I've done and being with the greatest golfers. I feel great that I can say I'm one of them." Lopez won her 48th tournament in 1997, and at the age of 40, finished second for the fourth time in the U.S. Women's Open. She shot four rounds in the 60s-the first woman to do so-but lost by a stroke to Alison Nicholas.           

"I'd love to have won the Open," Lopez once said. "But I've had enough good things in life that I won't be shattered because I don't."            

In 2002 at age 45, with an accumulation of aches, pains and family commitments, Lopez announced that the 25th year of her storied career would be her last playing a full-time schedule. "I am not walking away from golf," she said. "I am at the beginning of a brand new chapter in my golf career."       

Professional Majors:

LPGA Championship: 1978, 1985, 1989         

Other Significant Victories: LPGA Tour: 45

1978: Bent Tree Ladies Classic, Sunstar Classic, Greater Baltimore Classic, Coca-Cola Classic, Golden Lights Championship, Bankers Trust Classic, Colgate European Open, Colgate Far East Open
1979: Sunstar Classic, Sahara National Pro-Am, Women\'s International, Coca-Cola Classic, Golden Lights Championship, Lady Keystone Open, Colgate European Open, Mary Kay Classic
1980: Women\'s Kemper Open, Sarah Coventry, Rail Charity Classic
1981: Arizona Copper Classic, Colgate Dinah Shore, Sarah Coventry
1982: J&B Scotch Pro-Am, Mazda Japan Classic
1983: Elizabeth Arden Classic, J&B Scotch Pro-Am
1984: Uniden LPGA Invitational, Chevrolet World Championship of Women\'s Golf
1985: Chrysler-Plymouth Charity Classic, Mazda Hall of Fame Championship, Henredon Classic, Portland PING Championship
1987: Sarasota Classic, Cellular One-PING Golf Championship
1988: Mazda Classic, Ai Star/Centinela Hospital Classic, Chrysler-Plymouth Classic
1989: Atlantic City Classic, Nippon Travel-MBS Classic
1990: MBS LPGA Classic
1991: Sara Lee Classic
1992: Rail Charity Golf Classic, PING-Cellular One LPGA Golf Championship
1993: Youngstown-Warren LPGA Classic
1997: Chick-fil-A Charity Championship                

Other Wins:

1979: Portland-PING Team Championship (with Jo Ann Washam)
1980: JCPenney Classic (with Curtis Strange)
1987: Mazda Championship (with Miller Barber)
1992: Wendy's Three-Tour Challenge [with Dottie (Pepper) Mochrie and Patty Sheehan]               

Other Accomplishments:

Rookie of the Year: 1978Vare Trophy: 1978, 1979, 1985
Player of the Year: 1978, 1979, 1985, 1988
Solheim Cup: 1990. Captain in 2005.
LPGA Tour leading money winner: 1978, 1979, 1985    

References
http://www.wgv.com/hof/member.php?member=1077