Nancy Lopez

Nancy Lopez is an American professional golfer, born on January 6, 1957 in Torrance, California. She grew up in Roswell, New Mexico, won the New Mexico Women’s Amateur at the age of 12, and took the U.S. Girls’ Junior in 1972 and again in 1974. She went to the University of Tulsa and turned professional in 1977. In 1978, her first full season, she won nine times, five of them in a row, and in that same year she was named Rookie of the Year and Player of the Year and won the Vare Trophy for the lowest scoring average. She has 48 LPGA Tour wins in all. Her three majors are the LPGA Championship, which she won in 1978, 1985 and 1989. She was Player of the Year four times and entered the World Golf Hall of Fame in 1987. She played for the United States in the 1990 Solheim Cup and captained the side in 2005.

In course design her work is Lopez Legacy, at The Villages, the large retirement community in Florida. The Villages’ own website presents it as the first course Lopez designed. It has 27 holes, and the three nines are named after her three daughters: Ashley Meadows, Erinn Glen and Torri Pines. Ashley Meadows and Erinn Glen opened first as an eighteen, and the third nine, Torri Pines, was finished later; on the day it opened, Arnold Palmer and Lopez played the nine together. At the time of the opening, the director of golf operations at The Villages picked out two things as the character of the course: that it leaves plenty of room to play around the water rather than over it, particularly from the women’s tees, and that a good many trees were kept. Lopez says on the same site that she is proud of this first course design of hers at The Villages.

In Asia she won the Mazda Japan Classic in 1982, an event co-sanctioned by the American and Japanese women’s tours. GoGolf does not at present list any course designed by Lopez.

See the other golf course architects here.

Photo: Ted Van Pelt（Flickr） / CC BY 2.0