Ex-UA golfer seeks even keel on tour
ROGERS — For the group of girls from First Tee, the speaker fit to a T what they needed to hear.
Before today’s start of the LPGA’s Walmart NW Championship, several girls from the area’s First Tee golf program were among the observers at a media session involving Gaby Lopez, the second-year professional from Mexico and former Arkansas two-time All-American and 2015 NCAA women’s tournament runner-up.
Lopez smiled like she was gazing into a mirrored time machine, which in essence, she said, she was.
“I love looking at your faces because it’s like I was once that little girl,” Lopez said. “I loved professional golf when I was a little kid and I used to run around the course to watch Lorena Ochoa (the former LPGA great from Mexico) and to watch Juli Inkster ( a 7-time majors champion in her 24th LPGA season) to watch so many players. I was very, very inspired. They inspired me and now you inspire me and I feel even more blessed to be here today. I am an open book if you have any questions.” Several did.
How do you deal with success and failure?
“There are bumps all over the place,” Lopez said. “Ups and downs all the time. Everything in life is temporary. Nothing lasts
forever. Good times you are going to go through and bad times you are going to go through. So whenever you have a storm you have to be calm in the middle of the storm. Because it’s really easy to be calm when everything is pink and happy, but when we go through tough times we have to learn to be cool and calm. Because we know those tough times are not going to last forever.”
What about your expectations for this tournament?
“I try not to expect anything other than to do my best,” Lopez replied. “The rest I can’t control.”
Lopez credits her religious faith and her parents for keeping her grounded whether her drives land in the middle of the fairway or out of bounds.
During her UA days, Lopez said her parents wanted to know more how she was doing in her studies than faring on the golf course.
“They told me when I was a student-athlete, ‘You are a student first and an athlete second,” Lopez said. “They always told me education was first. That’s why I graduated from the University of Arkansas last year and accomplished that great. Because golf, you never know what’s going to happen. If something happens on the road, if a bump comes up, that education is something that nobody can take from you. Education and going to college is going to make you more mature and independent and you are going to grow in so many ways that you wouldn’t if you didn’t go to college.”
So far Lopez’s LPGA road has been far more smooth than bumpy.
She was third on the 2016 tour’s rookie rankings and at 102nd overall the top-ranked player in Mexico and represented Mexico at the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro.
Arkansas owes Mexico for the budding talent that Arkansas coach Shauna Estes-Taylor recruited but Mexico owes Arkansas for the golfer that Lopez has become.
“Playing as an amateur gave me the opportunity to be world ranked and to play Rio,” Lopez said. “So in 2016 I got enough ranking points to represent my country at the Olympic Games. That opportunity of playing the U.S. Open as an amateur, if it wasn’t for that I wouldn’t have played the Olympics last year. It was the best experience of my life and hopefully I can build on that. I owe Arkansas so much. It’s a great feeling to be here and represent the Razorbacks again.”
It’s the best of worlds coming back to “my second home,” Lopez said.
“Mexico and Arkansas hold a very, very special place in my heart,” Lopez said. “Being able to represent Mexico and the University of Arkansas is such a blessing. For me it’s such an honor to be with the people that I love and the community that has supported me the last five years.”
Her Arkansas coaches, Estes-Taylor and assistant Mike Adams, remain in Lopez’s corner.
“I keep in touch with them,” Lopez said. “They have become a big part of my success in life. Shauna and Mike have been very attentive and always with me all the time. I thank them for the opportunity to be here.”