Lorena Ochoa retiring from the LPGA

Grupo Ochoa, LPGA’s leading lady’s management company announced today that Lorena Ochoa will be retiring from the LPGA. During a press conference Friday morning she’ll personally give more details and reasons for her decision.

There’s been speculation that the reason for her departure from the sport is because of her marriage last December to Andres Conesa, CEO of AeroMexico. She has said for years that she would quit competing when she was ready to begin a family. I imagine marrying into a ready-made family with three stepsons would fulfill that requirement.

Lorena Ochoa turned pro in 2002. Playing on the Futures Tour, she won three of ten events she entered and led the money list, earning her LPGA Tour card for 2003. She won her first LPGA event in 2004 and everything exploded from there. To date, she’s won 27 tour events, two majors and has netted $14.8 million in career earnings.

Ochoa dropped hints about her retirement last November, when she hosted her Lorena Ochoa Invitational in Guadalajara.

Summing up her season, she said: “If you are talking about the results on the golf course, for sure it’s not the best year for me. But what’s important is I am happy.”

She added that: “Personally, it’s more important the things that I do outside the golf course. And that’s been my main focus right now.”

There’s a pretty good dialogue on Lorena Ochoa retiring over at Golf.com, here’s the link.

Tour Confidential: Lorena Ochoa retires

In the article, Christina Kim had this to say..

“I think that Lorena’s stepping away from the game has the ability to both hurt and help the LPGA. Hurt because she is one of the most iconic players out there, but also good because now players like myself, Wie, Paula Creamer and Tseng Shin are going to be vying for that No. 1 spot and will bring a sense of excitement to the game. Lorena has helped the game immensely but has to focus on her own life and her future.”

What I can’t figure out is why the #1 spot on the LPGA keeps getting voluntarily vacated? Lorena is only 28 years old and has a stellar career so far with a ton of golf left to play and she quits on it. What’s even more shocking is that no one is surprised by it, many of her contemporaries knew it was coming.

What do you think?