Lopez won the New Mexico Women's Amateur at age 12 in 1969, and the U.S. Girls' Junior in 1972 and 1974, at ages 15 and 17, respectively. Shortly after graduation from Goddard High School in Roswell, she played in the U.S. Women's Open as an amateur, first in 1974 and again in 1975 where she tied for second.
Playing full-time again in 1985, Lopez posted five wins, five seconds, five thirds, won the money title, the scoring title, the Player of the Year Award, and was named Associated Press Female Athlete of the Year for a second time. She entered only four events in 1986, when her second daughter was born, but came back with multiple wins in 1987–89 - three times each in 1988 and 1989 - and once again won Player of the Year honors in 1988. Lopez' schedule was curtailed again in the early 1990s when her third daughter was born. In 1992 she won twice. Lopez continued to play short schedules - from 11 to 18 tournaments - through 2002, then in 2003 cut back to just a half dozen or fewer events a year.[3]
Lopez was considered to be one of the greats of women's golf, and she was the game's best player from the late 1970s to late 1980s. She won three majors, and all were at the LPGA Championship, at the same course, in 1978, 1985, and 1989. Lopez never won the U.S. Women's Open, but finished second four times, the last in 1997 when she became the first in the event's history to score under 70 for all four rounds, yet lost to Alison Nicholas.[3] She won the Colgate-Dinah Shore in 1981, two years before it became a major, and was a runner-up three times at the du Maurier Classic in Canada.
Lopez was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame in 1987. She was a member of the United States Solheim Cup team in 1990 and was captain of the team in 2005. Lopez retired from regular tournament play in 2002 and attempted a return in 2007 and 2008. In her return season, she played six tournaments, missed the cut in each, and only broke 80 in three of the 12 rounds.[3] In 2008, she played in three events, with a low score of 76, never making the cut. She was inducted into the Georgia Sports Hall of Fame in 2002.[5]
Lopez is the only woman to win LPGA Rookie of the Year, Player of the Year, and the Vare Trophy in the same season (1978). Her company, Nancy Lopez Golf, makes a full line of women's clubs and accessories. She also does occasional television commentary.
Personal life
Lopez was married to Houston sportscaster Tim Melton from 1979 to 1982.[6][7] Shortly after her divorce, she married Major LeagueAll-Star baseball player Ray Knight, then a member of the Houston Astros, in October 1982 in Pelham, Georgia.[8] They were married for 27 years, divorcing in 2009, and have three daughters. While married, Lopez and Knight lived in Georgia in his hometown of Albany. Since 1986, she has hosted the Nancy Lopez Hospice Golf Classic at the Doublegate Country Club to raise money for Albany Community Hospice, returning yearly even after her divorce from Knight in 2009.[9] She currently resides in The Villages, Florida[10] where she hosts an annual golf tournament to benefit the charity AIM (Adventures in Movement), an organization that helps mentally challenged, visually impaired, hearing impaired, physically handicapped and other children and adults with special needs. She has hosted the tournament since 1981 and also serves as a national ambassador with AIM.[11] In 2017, Lopez married for a third time to Ed Russell.
Katherine M. Jamieson. "Reading Nancy Lopez: Decoding Representations of Race, Class, and Sexuality"
Baca Zinn, Maxine and Bonnie Thornton Dill. "Theorizing Difference from Multiracial Feminism." Feminist Theory Reader. Carole R. McCann & Seung-Kyung Kim, eds. New York, NY: Routledge Press, 2003.
