KEY POINTS:
Here's a starter for 10 - who is currently the world's most successful golfer and was last month named by Time magazine as one the 100 Most Influential People in the World?
Tiger Woods is a good try, but incorrect. Despite being unchallenged as the best male player, even Woods' phenomenal success of the last 18 months - 10 wins from 21 starts - is still four wins fewer than Lorena Ochoa achieved in that time.
The 26-year-old Mexican, who's after a third consecutive major championship at the LPGA in Maryland starting on Friday (NZT), has this year won six tournaments from nine starts. In the other three, she's finished 5th, 8th and 12th. Since she won the Women's British Open last August, Ochoa's played 18 tournaments and won 11.
In the absence of the injured Woods, she's quite probably the dominant athlete of either gender in any game anywhere. Two weeks ago, Annika Sorenstam announced her retirement from the end of this year. More than anyone, she could appreciate the torch had been passed.
Ochoa's on-course statistics are quite staggering. She's played 29 of her last 34 rounds under par. She hits 77 per cent of the greens in regulation. Her average drive, at 243 metres, is about the same as Shigeki Maruyama and Zach Johnson, and only a metre less than Tim Wilkinson.
Yet incredibly the LPGA Tour, which is a commercial organisation relying on the goodwill of its star players to attract sponsors and public attention, last week fined Ochoa a whopping US$25,000 because she didn't play in the Corning Classic in upstate New York. The reason - Ochoa disobeyed an LPGA rule which says players must compete in every event on the Tour at least once every four years. As she hadn't played in Corning since 2004 she copped the fine.
The decision is ridiculous because Ochoa's 2008 schedule is based around the four major women's championships, the eight tournaments where she's the defending champion and two events in Mexico. Considering she's the game's biggest name, the Tour's treatment defies belief.
But Ochoa's standing beyond the world of sport was illuminated by the Time honour. Others on the list were Barack Obama, Tony Blair, Oprah Winfrey and Rupert Murdoch. Ochoa's inclusion is for activity beyond golf. Taking inspiration form Woods' philanthropy, Ochoa's charitable foundation has funded an elementary school in her hometown of Guadalajara which uses non-traditional learning techniques in music and drama to keep the children interested.
This week's LPGA Championship has had no shorter-priced favourite since, well, when Sorenstam won three in succession from 2003 to 2005. But despite that extraordinary dominance of women's golf during the first six years of this decade when she won 48 tournaments, even Sorenstam could never manage more than two major championships in one year, and never three in a row.
So this coming week at Bulle Rock near Baltimore, Lorena Ochoa continues her quest for what may be the impossible dream - the Grand Slam of four major championships in one year. One of those trying to stop her will be Sorenstam. Despite that impending retirement, Sorenstam still managed three wins on the LPGA Tour this year, and only the Mexican superstar has more.
