The Hall of Famer was a sensation in 1978 and can relate to the spotlight now shining on Korda.
The attention can be a bit overwhelming, perhaps even daunting at times. But Nancy Lopez doesn’t mind. She’s handling it with the same vigor today that she did all those years ago, embracing the onslaught with the same positive approach she employed when she was a wide-eyed 21-year-old rookie on the LPGA Tour., her second major title and her fifth consecutive victory on the LPGA Tour.
Lopez, who played two years at Tulsa before turning pro, became the only player to win LPGA player of the year, rookie of the year and the Vare Trophy for low scoring average in a single season. “Her whole year was so unbelievable,” Carner said. “The thing that impressed me the most was that Nancy could handle the pressure. Everybody loved her and the press just mobbed her like no LPGA player ever before.”
“I didn’t have any money starting out and now I’m winning and now I have all this attention,” she says. “It was fun going into the press room and talking about golf. I probably didn’t realize it until later but during my rookie year, I’d be playing and then go straight to the press room and then I’d leave and go practice and I’d go back to the locker room and there’d be nobody there. Everybody was gone. And I didn’t form a relationship with a lot of other players. There was some resentment.
In her rookie year, Lopez said she would routinely play in Monday pro-ams which paid her $500. The money was good at a time when purses were a pittance compared to today and “I didn’t want my dad to spend any more money on me.”“I would say to my manager, Peter Johnson, are those people crazy? They’re going to pay me $25,000 to play golf for one day?’’ Lopez says. “It was a great time in my life.”
“There was a lot of positive energy around her,” Lopez said. “I felt that Nelly is going to have to realize how good she is. Inside, she is the only one who knows if she is going to hit that great shot or chip or hit that great putt. I felt that when I was playing well. Everything just seemed really easy. It’s a matter of waking up and looking in the mirror and saying I’m really good. And I think she’s probably feeling that now.
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