Lorena Ochoa, AP Female Athlete of the Year
2007 was quite a year for Lorena.
While it was expected that Lorena Ochoa was the obvious choice as the LPGA’s player of the year, but she was once again named the AP’s Female Athlete of the Year for 2007. Lorena achieved all kinds of personal goals in 2007 and overtook Annika Sorenstam as the most dominant player in women’s golf, an unofficial title that Annika held for almost an entire decade.
Recapping the year, Lorena won her first major championship, the Women’s British Open. She topped nearly $4 million in total earnings for 2007 and won a total of 12 times on the LPGA in 2007. But at 26, Lorena hadn’t always looked to be golf’s next Queen of the links. Losing tournaments after leading heading into the final round continued to plague Lorena even through to this year, but Lorena battled all of her demons and has established herself as the best women’s golfer in the world.
As for the other candidates in consideration, there was Justine Henin, New York Marathon winner Paula Radcliffe, Tennessee basketball player Candace Parker and Allyson Felix, the second woman in history to win three gold medals at the World Track and Field Championships.
I guess when you think about it, there really was no competition, Lorena was odds on favorite to take this honor as well. Justine Henin won the French Open but that’s really about it.
New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady was named the AP’s Male Athlete of the Year. Tom is on track to break Peyton Manning’s single season record for touchdowns and en route to an undefeated regular season. Tom edged out Roger Federer of Switzerland.
December 23rd, 2007 at 9:03 am
There was really know doubt about the fact that she was definitely the female golfer of the year and could have even given Tiger Woods a run for his money if they had to select a golfer of the year across all categories but it definitely was a big achievement for this young Mexican girl to be named the female athlete of the year two years in a row.
It is some impressive competition that she has left behind and definitely deserves every bit of the adulation that she is getting.
The others in contention were the like of Justine Henin, Paula Radcliffe,etc but she comfortably went past them on the strength of her achievements this year.
Her real challenge will come next year when she will have to counter the threat of a fully fit Annika Sorenstam who missed most of this season because of injury. It could make for intriguing competition next season and you can expect them to go toe to toe in most competitions and it will definitely be a fascinating contest and would be an acid test for Lorena Ochoa. The difficult bit is now. Having to hang on to her number one position could prove to be more difficult but she is capable of doing it and also capable of scaling greater heights.
http://www.golfswingsecretsrevealed.com/blog/2007/05/31/sorenstam-happy-to-be-back/