Ochoa is leader in schoolhouse

GUADALAJARA —  You don’t get to be the No. 1 women’s golfer in the world by backing down from challenges.

So when a fledgling pro named Lorena Ochoa was approached with the idea of saving an unconventional elementary school in one of Guadalajara’s poorest neighborhoods, she didn’t flinch.

Three years later, the school, named La Barranca after the steep ravine it overlooks, has 245 students and a waiting list of dozens. Ground is about to be broken on a high school complex next door, a $650,000 project funded by Ochoa’s foundation.

Not bad -- for a start.

“This is something I want to do nationwide,” Ochoa says. “You change the life [of] one girl, one guy and you change the life around them with their family. It’s something amazing. I play golf and my motivation is to help.

“The more I win the more I can help.”

In that case, Ochoa can help a lot. Since she joined the LPGA in 2003, her 24 tournament victories are second only to Annika Sorenstam. Last year she became the first woman to earn more than $2.9 million in a single season, topping $4.3 million in prize money.

And today Ochoa, who turns 27 on Saturday, takes another big step in her career when she plays host to the Lorena Ochoa Invitational at her home course in Guadalajara, becoming the 15th woman in history to have her own LPGA tournament

But while Ochoa has come to define women’s golf, the sport is a long way from defining her.

“Who wins a golf tournament or leaves with that beautiful trophy is only a memory for a while,” Ochoa says in a second-floor ballroom overlooking the Guadalajara Country Club course, where she learned to play the game while in kindergarten. “And it’s only satisfaction mostly for you and the people around you. It sounds a bit selfish.

“I prefer to be remembered for other things. Being a good person. Giving back to the community and help[ing] others. I don’t get any more satisfaction than seeing the kids and seeing them happy and thinking about the opportunity of their getting an education.”

The school

As soon as you turn off the paved highway and on to the rutted, rocky dirt path that serves as Main Street for the barrio known as La Coronilla, it becomes apparent that Guadalajara has turned its back on this neighborhood on the city’s northeastern edge.

When it was founded 10 years ago, La Barranca was more an idea than a school, with classes being held outdoors, under trees, because there were no buildings. Its experimental curriculum emphasizes activity and participation, with children working together in teams and learning through songs, games and theater rather than from books or memorization.

La Barranca’s six classrooms sit on the rim of a canyon, providing a breathtaking view of a lush green valley that seems to go on forever. That too has been worked into the lesson plan -- the idea that there are no limits to what you see or what you can accomplish.

But that lesson doesn’t apply only to the students. Parental participation is mandatory, with mothers required to come once every three weeks to make breakfast or lunch for the children while fathers must help maintain the infrastructure by painting the buildings or repairing the bathrooms. The school also offers after-school workshops and parenting classes, hosts Alcoholics Anonymous meetings and has even helped parents find counseling or jobs.

That is one reason the school hasn’t been vandalized, despite the fact it sits at the end of a dark, isolated road in a crime-ridden neighborhood, says school director Maria Elena Vazquez.

“They take care of the school,” she says of the nearby families. “This is a different type of investment. It’s a way to prevent human suffering.”

Ochoa’s early years

Ochoa had little daily experience with human suffering growing up among the mansions that sprawl along the well-maintained tree-lined streets surrounding the Guadalajara Country Club. So her parents, Javier, a prominent real estate developer, and Marcela, an abstract artist, made sure their children understood that with such comfort came responsibility.

The family had a cabin in the mountains outside Guadalajara, and the Ochoas -- Lorena has two older brothers and a younger sister -- would frequently stop in the poor villages along the way, sometimes helping to paint the town church or houses that needed sprucing up.

“That’s why I am who I am today,” says Ochoa, dressed simply in a pair of tan golf shorts and a polo shirt and wearing a golf cap with the name of a Mexican bank. “What I have to say to my parents for sure is thank you for all the time they spent and the lessons they taught. You can always help. It’s the best way to be thankful. Because we’re living a life that’s a dream life. And that’s not fair.”

Being humble is a lesson Ochoa has taken to heart. And it’s a big reason why she has never been the target of the petty jealousies that are common in professional golf.

“I’ve heard people say that you really want to beat her, but when she wins it’s like you’re happy for her because she’s so nice,” says Sophia Sheridan, a childhood friend of Ochoa’s and the only other Mexican on the LPGA tour last year. “You can’t really get upset with someone beating you if she’s really nice to you when you’re off the golf course and on the golf course.”

Adds LPGA Commissioner Carolyn Bivens: “When someone says ‘Lorena’ I think of the way she opens up all her press conferences with a ‘hello everybody.’ I would say that’s pretty unusual for a world’s No. 1 athlete in any sport. It’s one thing to do it as part of a public persona. It’s another thing to be a very authentic role model.”

So while others on the LPGA tour travel in private jets or at least fly first class, Ochoa insists on going coach. And as many as a dozen times each year she sets aside a morning to meet or make breakfast for the groundskeepers at tour stops.

“I’ve never seen her waver from who she is,” says Reilley Rankin, an LPGA veteran who has known Ochoa since both played in college, Ochoa at Arizona and Rankin at Georgia. “The way I sum her up is she’s a better person than golfer.

“She doesn’t meet with the grounds crew just for media’s sake. She just really appreciates those people. That’s exactly how she is. She’s nobody different than the grounds crew. She just happens to have a different job.”

That was a problem for a while, though, because Ochoa’s heart was much bigger than her paychecks in her first three years on the tour. Even after forming the Lorena Ochoa Foundation as a rookie, she had trouble finding a focus for its work -- a struggle that led to a long discernment process in which he sought advice from nuns, priests and family friends.

The answer eventually came from Maria Laura Kunardth, who, with her husband, Pablo Sahagun de la Mora, a prominent Guadalajara businessman, had helped found La Barranca. Ochoa had played in a couple of charity tournaments to raise funds for the school, but that hadn’t been enough, Kunardth said. The school needed to expand, but instead it was in danger of closing.

“They came to me for a reason and it happened to be the perfect time,” says Ochoa, who supports two other elementary schools in Mexico and hopes to expand her program to three additional cities each year. “It was so clear to me that this was what I needed to do with my life, with the foundation. And I said yes. I never doubted it.”

(She also contributes elsewhere. Her participation in an annual charity tournament for children stricken with cancer helped fund a new wing on a public hospital in Guadalajara, and last year, after winning the ADT Championship, she announced a $100,000 donation to flood victims in the Mexican state of Tabasco.)

“As soon as she started making money she wanted to [start] her foundation to help kids. Even though people told her it was too early,” Sheridan says. “The lack of education in Mexico is, I would say, the No. 1 problem. There’s hunger and poverty, but there’s hunger and there’s poverty because there are people with no education that don’t know what to do.”

About a third of Mexican students drop out before high school and many of those who do go on never graduate. But at La Barranca, administrators are turning children away

“For me, education is the most important thing,” says an enthusiastic 12-year-old named Emanuel Avila, a student at the school. “That’s what’s going to give you a chance to improve yourself.”

Ochoa says improvement is her goal too. Although she has been the LPGA player of the year the past two seasons -- and figures to make it three this year -- she insists her game can get better.

“I haven’t accomplished anything yet,” she says. “I’m going to win, hopefully, a lot more majors and break some of my records. There are so many things that I want to achieve.”

Not for her, though. Because if fame and success haven’t changed Ochoa, as her friends insist, the deep religious faith that draws her to LPGA Bible study classes has at least led her to question why she has both when others have neither.

“I play golf for a reason, yes?” she asks rhetorically. “And I’m successful for a reason. And it’s not because I’m going to be rich and I’m going to have a house in California or New York. [It’s] because of all of the other things.

“Helping with the foundation. Being able to be a good role model. That’s my responsibility, That’s what I need to do for others. I don’t think it’s about golf.”

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kevin.baxter@latimes.com