Old Tom Morris Award winner Nancy Lopez is one of golf's most popular players, as well as one of the most well-respected, well-liked sports figures of our time.

Adventures from the heart

With apologies to GCSAA at large, its first Old Tom Morris Award winner of the new millennium has an agenda in life that lists golf No. 2 at best, and more likely No. 3.

But, be not concerned: Nancy Lopez is as worthy a recipient of the OTM award as any of the 17 honorees who have come before her. In fact, Lopez's perspective of professional golf's place in her life may well raise the bar in future considerations for GCSAA's highest honor.

To be sure, Lopez has made a lifetime commitment to golf that will help ensure the welfare of the game for many years to come -- just as Old Tom Morris himself would want. But in a competitive career that goes back to her pre-teen years, the 42-year-old Lopez has managed to succeed, both as a player and an outstanding individual, as few others have done in the history of the sport.

On the one hand, there's public outcry over what little golf course irrigation use is allowed. On the other, there's outcry from membership dues- and green fees-paying golfers and controversy-thirsty media over why the playing fields are no longer green and lush -- the weather be damned.

In recent years, Lopez has been recognized for her unselfish commitment to both her profession and living her life on her own terms. In addition to earning her way into both the LPGA and World Golf Halls of Fame, she's been honored with awards such as the Women's Sports Foundation's Flo Hyman Award, the USGA's prestigious Bob Jones Award, and perhaps most telling of all, she and her husband of 17 years, Ray Knight, were named the National Golf Foundation's Golf Family of the Year.

True recognition
Lopez says she believes the Old Tom Morris Award's impressive list of winners shows that it too has the perspective she covets most.

"It's an honor for me to win this kind of award and be in that kind of company," she says. "This is more than winning trophies; this is what we are about. I want people to remember me for my golf, but also I want to be remembered for me as a person. The superintendents' award -- like some others -- I think recognizes that."

Lopez's accomplishments in both amateur and professional golf are legendary, as well as a work still in progress. Yet, they become all but overshadowed by the person. If she's arguably the greatest woman golfer ever, she's undeniably one of the game's most popular players and one of the most respected, well-liked athletes of our time.

Today, Lopez and Knight -- a sports celebrity himself as a former Major League Baseball player and manager, and currently a baseball analyst for ESPN -- live in Albany, Ga., with their three daughters, Ashley, 16; Erinn, 13; and Torri, 8, and Ray's son from a previous marriage, Brooks, 20.

Together, they're a legacy of what Nancy Lopez stands for in the world of professional sports. On one hand, she took women's golf to another level with her incredible talent, and, on the other, raised family priorities to heights few other athletes in her generation have achieved.

She did it her way
To raise a family in the midst of one's prime playing years on the LPGA Tour is one thing. To do it and still excel at a game in which motherhood and performance mesh about as well as oil and water has earned Lopez admiration that has transcended her 48 career tournament victories.

A few years back, a leading golf publication commented: "What's amazing is not just what Nancy Lopez has done in golf, but how she has done it."

Indeed, few are more aware of what Lopez is all about than her peers on the golf course. From her rookie year in 1978 through 1982, she won 26 times and literally lifted the LPGA into the national spotlight while winning over legions of fans with her on-course talent and off-course charm.

But even in the midst of those prodigious years, Lopez quietly gave a glimpse of where her priorities lay when she became involved in a charity for disabled children, Adventures in Movement for the Handicapped (see "Adventures from the heart"). Then, in the fall of 1982, she and Knight were married. Their three girls were born in a span of nine years beginning in '83.

With an arm around husband Ray Knight and a buss for dad Domingo Lopez, Lopez is known for putting family first and golf second (or even third).

During that time, and in the ensuing years to the present, Lopez estimates that, in various stages, her family has occupied as much as 75 percent of her time. Still, she managed to win nearly two dozen more championships along the way, including as recently as 1997, and continued to tirelessly promote the LPGA, keep sponsor commitments and raise countless dollars for various causes.

Balancing two lives
A four-time LPGA Player of the Year, Lopez ranks fifth in career earnings with more than $5 million. Obviously, however, she has not been the same golfer in her role as the LPGA's most famous "working mom" as she was during her young superstar days when, in five years, she won more than 20 percent of the tournaments she entered. Her game was more one of natural talent than of skill honed from mechanical repetition, and eventually it suffered from the many and varied demands of motherhood.

"It's been so tough on Nancy, balancing family and golf," her husband says. "In all these years, when she's at home, she doesn't practice at all, and when you start to get away from the day-to-day preparation to play tournament golf, it takes its toll."

Lopez says that raising a family and playing professional golf gets more difficult with age -- on all those involved.

"It was easier early, when the kids were babies and could travel with us," she says. "That's not the case later on when they have so much going on in their own lives, and you want to be there and be part of that."

Lopez, who also has finished second in LPGA events 26 times, admits she probably would have won 60 or more titles by now if she had delayed raising a family. But she's quick to add there's no regrets.

"What might have been has never been important," she says. "It's never been an issue."

Her husband, who shares Lopez's strong commitment to family, says not only has family been first in her life, it's always been an easy decision -- no matter how hard it really is.

"She's lived through a lot of guilt. She wants to be there for her kids all the time and it's very difficult for her to do that," Knight says. "Over the years she's gotten more and more frustrated. I think it's relevant that she has struggled with her golf game because she has struggled so much with not being with her kids."

Lopez spends a considerable amount of time as national ambassador for Dayton, Ohio-based Adventures in Movement for the Handicapped, which helps disabled children function with their handicaps through a unique method of movement education (See the sidebar "Adventures from the heart.")

The family bond
To understand where Nancy Lopez is coming from in the present, it's essential to know from where she came.

She was born to Domingo and Marina Lopez in Torrance, Calif., on Jan. 6, 1957. The family soon moved to New Mexico where her father worked in a car body shop. Domingo gradually learned how to play golf from his boss and says he eventually learned it well enough to play to a 2 to 4 handicap.

By the time Nancy was eight years old, her father was teaching her the game. By the time she was 12, she was the New Mexico State Women's Amateur champion and a prodigy about to set the golf world on its ear.

Nancy won the USGA Junior Girls title twice, then as an 18-year-old amateur stunned the professional ranks by finishing second in the U.S. Women's Open. The next year, playing for the University of Tulsa, she won the national collegiate title. She joined the LPGA Tour during the 1977 season. In her first two full years on the tour, Lopez won no less than 17 tournaments, including five in a row during her rookie year.

So how did one who learned the game while knocking a golf ball around the house and in the yard with her dad soar so high so fast? Her father says it was a simple case of love, which has always been the Nancy Lopez staple.

"She loved golf from the very start; she loved the game," says Domingo, now 84 and living in Roswell, N.M. "I remember when she hurt her knee in high school and cried because she was afraid she'd never play golf again. She just loved it."

Yet, while golf is indeed Nancy Lopez's love, family is her passion. And that too was learned from her father. Her mother died when Nancy was just 19 and on the threshold of superstardom. It was a huge blow, but one lessened by the presence of her father, who became her lifeline to family commitment.

"There's nothing like family, nothing," says Domingo. "Nancy learned that early, and she's never forgotten it."

Ray Knight says the interplay between father and daughter over the years is probably the strongest he's ever experienced.

"One of the things that attracted me to Nancy the most was the tremendous feeling she has for family," he says. "Domingo and Nancy are extremely loyal. They are always there for each other. I've never seen a father and daughter more close. And it's something that's extended right on through to our marriage."

Superintendents' champion
Nancy Lopez's feeling for golf and its trappings are really only a little less passionate than that for her loved ones. And as a tour professional she's well aware of what's behind the enjoyment of playing the game in today's climate of optimal conditions.

"The quality of golf courses is so good anymore that you come to expect it," she says. "At the same time, I think superintendents today are being looked at more as true professionals. Every golf course has its own personality. I think superintendents take a lot of pride in creating and maintaining that."

Lopez is no stranger to many aspects of agronomy, golf course development and GCSAA. She has appeared at a past conference and show as a spokesperson for Fine Lawn Research Inc., and, in fact, even has a turfgrass variety named after her -- Fine Lawn's shade-tolerant Lopez Creeping Bentgrass.

"I know the job isn't easy these days with the demands superintendents face -- certainly not as easy as some may think," Lopez says. "It takes quite a talent to create a beautiful golf course for such a wonderful sport. I respect superintendents for that. Plus, as a professional golfer, they are so important to me . . . as important as anyone in a golf operation."

New legacy in the making
One of Lopez's newest ventures is golf course design, and with the help of the people who work to bring order to her professional life -- International Management Group -- she has a couple of projects in the works for 2000: one in Canada and another in Florida. A handful of other sites are currently being considered as well.

Heading the venture, Nancy Lopez Course Design, is Mike Rielly, a senior vice president at IMG. Lopez's design partner is Brit Stenson, a golf course architect under the management company's umbrella and a former director of golf course design and construction services for the PGA Tour.

Rielly says Lopez and Stenson provide design services and on-site construction supervision to developers. True to form, Lopez, who was involved from a design aspect in two projects in Asia before the formation of her own company, wants to create low-key, affordable golf courses for the average player.

"We call it the complete golf experience," Rielly says. "We're taking a broader look at who's playing on golf courses."

Stenson notes that the timing is good for Lopez to get into the development of courses that will cater to those segments of golfers who are driving the sport's current growth.

"We feel you can have a golf course that's challenging and memorable, and yet still be playable for everybody," Stenson says. "I think this gives Nancy the opportunity to really develop her ideas and skills in that area."

Although she personally likes tough playing conditions that reward good shot making because they help her focus and play better, Lopez agrees that too much of today's golf course development presents layouts beyond the capabilities of all but a small percentage of the country's golfers.

"I'm excited about it," she says of the new venture. "I look forward to having the opportunity to design and build a golf course that both men and women can play and enjoy . . . the everyday golfers . . . they're the people who support golf courses."

Rekindling the fire
Lopez says there's still plenty of golf in her future. Besides golf course design, she's involved in another piece of big business, NancyLopezGolf, which is a division of the Arnold Palmer Golf Co. and features her own signature line of golf clubs.

More importantly, there's more competitive golf to play. A few years before injuries to both knees severely curtailed her schedule in 1999, she recommitted herself to the game. She lost weight, took on a fitness regimen and worked on her playing style in ways she had never done before.

"When you get to the point where you don't play a lot, you really need to find something to focus on," Lopez says. "All my life, when I played golf it was all 'feel.' I was able to do what I had to do. But the less I've practiced and the less I've played over the years, the more I've had to learn to hit certain shots that I used to not even have to think about."

Lopez polished her game with the help of her father and the late Gardner Dickinson. By the 1997 season, she was practically her old self. She won her 48th title that year, the Chick-fil-A Championship, and at age 40 finished second in the U.S. Open, becoming the first woman in Open history to shoot four sub-70 rounds. She wound up the year among the top 10 money winners for the first time since '92.

A four-time LPGA Player of the Year, Lopez ranks fifth in career earnings with more than $5 million.

Lopez's runner-up finish in the '97 Open was the fourth time she's come in second in the only tournament of note she's never won. The quest to win that championship continues to motivate her in what is admittedly the twilight of her playing career.

"I'm determined to do it all over again (renewed commitment to playing at a championship level) and see where it takes me," she says. "Down the line I'm sure I'll start cutting back, but I'll continue to play in the major events."

Her father, naturally, will be there for her in this latest challenge.

"I hope we can spend some time and see where the problems are," Domingo says. "You know, these kids out there on the tour are good. They're tough to beat -- just like Nancy was."

Perspective, perspective
Of course, any commitment to golf, now and forever, will still be on Lopez's terms. Her marriage is strong, and she plans to keep it that way. Her children are older and have more specific wants and needs than ever, and her involvement with handicapped children and other charitable causes loom larger than ever.

"My future is with my family," she says. "But I do love golf. It has been really good to me, and I've met a lot of wonderful people because of it. I'd like to stay involved with the LPGA any way I can for as long as I can. I've always enjoyed promoting my sport."

Wife, mother, ambassador of goodwill, professional golfer. In that order, and a champion at all of them.

"All the things you hear are true," says Ray Knight. "She really is a special, precious person who really cares about people."

Terry Ostmeyer is a contributing editor for GCM.