After Lorena Ochoa's 2010 official presentation to Mexican media, her manager is sure that this year will be a season full of challenges, but the harvest will be excellent. Here's what he said to Even Par.
Alejandro has been Lorena's agent since she turned pro.
Regarding this season's schedule Alejandro Ochoa assured "it's not 100% locked up, many tournaments haven't committed totally, but we're expecting some changes anytime soon". This would be very important since "it's possible that a couple of tournaments add up by the end of the, they would be played in Asia". As a consequence, world number 1 might make some adjustments "Lorena will participate in almost every tournament from February to summer, which will give us a margin to evaluate her performance and decide if she plays more".
With a very short tournament ahead, Alejandro trusts that her sister's abilities should make her a 10 time winner, "it's a pretty realistic goal, it might sound nuts because we're talking about half of the tournaments of the season, but it sounds real to me".
The off-season work hasn't been easy, "she's been working very hard and has been devoted from the beginning of the year to take advantage. She's been practicing on the beach and has been putting special attention on her fitness. I've been there and I can tell you she's totally concentrated and she'll have great results on the course, because outside the ropes she's balanced, I mean personally, of course". This made clear that when the ball is in Lorena's court, she will be able to solve anything, basically, without pressure.
Maybe all this confidence comes from "the way she's been playing is spectacular, I feel 2009 was tough and she managed to finish in style and honorably. This year she has only golf on her mind, she's satisfied with her personal life and has a lot of security in herself".
About the Jiyai Shin matter and the two percentile points that separate them in the Rolex Rankings, Alejandro accepted for the first time that "what happened last year was a wake up call, it was perfectly clear that the competition is fierce; Lorena won't have a cushion from the beginning and this won't let her be relaxed. She's taken the situation positively because she understands that she needs to focus, practice more and be alert".
Therefore, the only thing that's missing is the first tournament of the season to start, because from that point we will know, for sure, if Lorena is back to what she used to before 2009, when she was close to losing the POY for fourth consecutive year.
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