Lopez Wins Five. No rookie had ever won more than two golf tournaments in the same year until American golfer Nancy Lopez shot to the top of the Ladies Professional Golf Association tour in 1978, winning a total of nine tournaments, including a record-setting five tournaments in a row. . Lopez Wins Five Unless you had witnessed it, what golfer Nancy Lopez accomplished on June 18, 1978, might have sounded fanciful. Lopez, a 21-year-old rookie three years out of high school, set a Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA) record by winning five tournaments in a row. By the close of 1978 she had won nine tournaments and was named the LPGA rookie of the year and player of the year (the first to receive both) and the Associated Press Female Athlete of the Year. She made more money that year than any golfer in LPGA annals, and she pocketed more winnings and more titles than any rookie golfer--man or woman--in the history of the sport. Lopez was a dream come true for the LPGA. Virtually overnight, she catapulted the women's tour from an underappreciated also-ran in the crowded field of professional sports to the top of the marquee. "Nancy didn't just arrive on the tour, she burst upon it," according to the book Illustrated History of Women's Golf. "It's difficult to comprehend the impact of a single individual on an entire sport. Miss Lopez had more pure charisma than any player since Babe [Didrikson], and the game to go with it." Lopez's achievements were all the more startling because her only golfing lessons had consisted of her father offering such advice as, "Hit the ball," "Let 'er fly," and "Get the ball in the hole." Domingo Lopez, owner of the East Second Body Shop in Roswell, New Mexico, and a fine golfer in his own right, began taking his daughter to the local nine-hole course when she was eight. "Daddy just put the ball on the ground and told me to hit it into the hole way down there," Lopez told the New York Times. "That's about as formal a lesson as I've ever had." By age 15 Lopez was the national junior champion and the state amateur champion. She helped her otherwise all-male high school team win the state title. In 1975, as an 18-year-old high school senior, she finished in a second-place tie in the United States Women's Open. After three years and one national championship at the University of Tulsa, in Oklahoma, Lopez turned pro. Lopez's pro debut was a memorable one--a runner-up showing at the U.S. Women's Open. After placing second in the next two tournaments, Lopez's season was interrupted by the death of her mother and by a hand injury. The following February, Lopez won the 1978 Bent Tree Classic in Sarasota, Florida. Thinking of her mother, she cried as she walked down the final fairway to the gallery's cheers. Experts who called the victory a fluke were silenced a week later when Lopez won the Sunstar Classic in Los Angeles. A missed 12-foot putt during a sudden-death playoff at the Kathryn Crosby/Honda Civic Classic kept Lopez from collecting her third straight title. Her winnings, however, gave her a rookie-year total of $47,317. "I believe I'm gifted," Lopez told Sports Illustrated in a rare moment of overt self-assuredness. "God gave me this talent, and I believe I can do anything." By this time she had begun to attract a devoted following known as "Nancy's Navy"--a moniker inspired by Arnold Palmer's entourage, "Arnie's Army." Two weeks later Lopez extended her winning streak to three, setting a course record with a final-round 65 at the Golden Lights Championship in New Rochelle, New York. Lopez's ninth sub-par score in her last ten rounds climaxed in a tight battle with her childhood idol, veteran JoAnne Carner, who finished three strokes back. No golfer--man or woman--had ever won more than two tournaments as a rookie. "We're changing the name of our organization to the Lopez Professional Golf Association," veteran Betsy Cullen quipped to the New York Times. Lopez took a well-deserved week off, passing up the du Maurier Classic in Toronto, Canada, to prepare for the ensuing LPGA championship in Mason, Ohio, in June. The rest paid off. Lopez shredded the Kings Island course, her tournament-record score of 275 besting second-place finisher Amy Alcott by six strokes. Until a final-round bogey on the 12th hole, Lopez hadn't missed par in 41 consecutive holes. "Every time I heard the crowd yell," golfer Jo Ann Washam told Sports Illustrated, "I wondered, 'What's she doing now?'" The victory tied the all-time LPGA mark of four consecutive titles held by Shirley Englehorn, Kathy Whitworth, and Mickey Wright (who did it twice). Boosting her 1978 earnings to a tour-best $118,948, Lopez reached the $100,000 plateau earlier in the season than any LPGA player before her. In her 20 pro appearances to that point, she had finished below 16th only three times. Lopez was nervous about the upcoming tournament when she arrived at the Locust Hill Country Club in Pittsford, New York, a few days later for the Bankers Trust Classic. The high tension, coupled with high winds, kept Lopez three strokes out of the lead after two rounds. She closed out her second-round 73 with a three-putt and a double-bogey on the 18th hole. Lopez caught fire during the final round, breezing through the front nine with an LPGA-record 32 that lifted her to three under par for the tournament. A sensational 25-foot birdie putt on the ninth green moved her two strokes ahead of second-round leader Jane Blalock. A Blalock birdie and a Lopez bogey knotted the two going into the 14th hole. Lopez, however, took the lead for good with a magnificent 35-foot birdie putt on 17. She had watched a playing partner roll in a similar putt, which had given Lopez a line on her own shot. Blalock missed a birdie attempt on 17 and, with Lopez in the clubhouse, bogeyed 18. Lopez's record fifth straight win, with its $11,250 booty, also made her the winningest rookie in golf history. Her total of $153,336 at that point was $234 more than Jerry Pate's first-year haul in 1976. During her acceptance speech on the 18th green, Lopez thanked her family for their years of support. She also saluted Jerry Mesolella, a spectator whom she had hit on the head with an errant drive on the tenth hole. Lopez then walked off the course, found a telephone, and, with tears in her eyes, called her father back in Roswell. "Happy Father's Day," she said. Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2009. © 1993-2008 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
