Lopez, Nancy
Golf
b. Jan. 6, 1957, Torrance, CA
Lopez began playing golf when she was eight, under the tutelage of her father, and she won the New Mexico Women's Amateur championship when she was twelve. An eighteen-year-old student at Tulsa University, she entered the 1975 U. S. Women's Open as an amateur and finished second.
The winner of the 1976 AIAW collegiate championship, Lopez left school after her junior year to join the LPGA tour. She played in just six tournaments in 1977, but in 1978 she won nine events, including a record five in a row, and was named rookie of the year, player of the year, and Associated Press female athlete of the year. Among her victories was the LPGA championship.
She followed that outstanding rookie year with eight tournament wins in 1979. Lopez won the Vare Trophy in both 1978 and 1979 with averages of 71.76 and 71.20 strokes per round, both records.
Although her victory pace slowed during the next three years, she had eight wins, including the 1981 Dinah Shore, where she shot a 64 for one round. Lopez married major league baseball player Ray Knight in 1982 and played in only twelve events the following year because of pregnancy, but she won two of them.
Lopez took two of sixteen tournaments in 1984 and then won her second player of the year award and second Associated Press athlete of the year award in 1985. She set records with winnings of $416,472, an average of 70.73 strokes per round, 25 birdies in a single tournament, and a 268 to win the Henredon Classic. Among Lopez's victories that year was her second LPGA Championship.
After missing almost all of the 1986 tour because of a second pregnancy, Lopez won two tournaments in 18 starts in 1987. The following year, she became the fourth woman golfer to surpass $2 million in career earnings and she was again named player of the year. In 22 starts, she finished in the top five 12 times, including three victories. She also tied for the lead in two other tournaments but lost playoffs.
Lopez won her third LPGA Championship in 1989. After that, she was out of action for considerable periods of time with injuries and illness and she won only six tournaments in the next dozen years. Her last full year on the tour was 2002.
Lopez ranks sixth all-time with 48 LPGA victories. She's 12th in earnings with $5,310,391.
Another Hall of Fame golfer, Carol Mann, once said of Lopez, "She plays by feel. All her senses come into play. That's when golf is an art."