He has marveled at her sweet smile, whether she shoots a 77 at the United States Open or a 67 at the Longs Drugs Challenge. “She feels like she has a purpose,” Brooker said, “and that everything happens for a reason and that she’s been put here to do something magical.”  Ochoa has felt that way, she said, since she was 13. “I didn’t struggle doubting or spending time debating on what should I do,” she said. “It was clear to me that I wanted to be a golfer and I wanted to be the best.”  For all her success, this year has been a struggle for Ochoa. An uncle on her father’s side died in Mexico in May while she was traveling home from South Carolina, where she had been preparing for a tournament.  Less than two weeks later, during the week of the L.P.G.A. Championship, her maternal grandfather was hospitalized in Guadalajara. He died hours before Ochoa teed off in the final round. She did not find out until after she had finished third, one stroke out of a playoff.  “It’s been tough,” she said. “I guess now they have a good place in heaven to watch me play. Front row.”  The well-being of her immediate family is a nagging worry for Ochoa. Her increasing fame and $12 million career earnings have made her parents, two older brothers and younger sister potential targets of the same gangs that kidnap wealthy Mexican businessmen and hold them for ransom.  “I don’t really like to talk about it,” Ochoa said. “It’s so sad. In Mexico, they just see money and you never know.”  She added: “We are in a position right now where we need to have security. I don’t like it. The best way is just to have a normal life and mix with the people. But Mexico is dangerous. And I think you need to do it, even if we don’t want to do it.”  The third of four children born to Javier, a real estate developer, and Marcela, an artist, Ochoa started playing golf when she was 5. Her family belonged to Guadalajara Country Club, and it is there that Ochoa met Rafael Alarcón, a former PGA Tour player who has been her coach since she was 9.  She left home after high school to play at the University of Arizona, following in the footsteps of her role model, Annika Sorenstam. Even then, when her English was poor, she communicated joy better than anybody. Laura Myerscough, who was a year ahead of Ochoa, said, “I remember helping her with an English paper, and even if she didn’t understand anything, she’d smile at you and nod her head.”  Ochoa turned pro after her sophomore year and joined the L.P.G.A. Tour in 2003. Even before Ochoa supplanted Sorenstam at No. 1 last April, people gravitated toward her like blades of Bermuda grass to the sun.  At an L.P.G.A. stop in Illinois in 2004, Tom Henry and his wife, Chris, were trying to decide whom to follow after the golfer they had come to watch was finished with her round. Ochoa made eye contact and said: “Hello. How are you?” Tom Henry turned to his wife and said, “Let’s follow her.”  The Henrys, who live outside Orlando, Fla., have driven to four tournaments this year to follow Ochoa. When they made a trip to Mount Pleasant, S.C., and found out that she had withdrawn, they stayed only one day. “Without Lorena, we just felt lost,” Tom Henry said in a telephone interview.  When Chris Henry was being treated for breast cancer, Ochoa sent her encouraging e-mail messages. Last week, Henry received in the mail the cap that Ochoa wore at the L.P.G.A. Championship the day she shot a 65. “She makes you feel special,” Henry said.  On the course, Brooker said, Ochoa will wave or wink at someone, then turn to him and say: “Remember her? We met her at this tournament two years ago.” Or she will point out a boy in her gallery and say she has to sign a ball for him because he followed her last year.  “She is a breath of fresh air,” said Mickey Wright, who won 82 L.P.G.A. titles and is the only woman to have held all four major titles concurrently. Speaking by telephone from her home in Florida, the 73-year-old Wright added: “Thinking about others right in the middle of a golf tournament is so unusual. I’m a real fan of hers. I hope for her to break every record that there is.”  During tournaments, Ochoa is shadowed by off-duty police officers, a recent development. “I don’t like this,” she said. “I like to be more simple and have that personal touch with fans.”  But her galleries have grown so large that Brooker cannot police them by himself. He said Ochoa, a fast player, was being put on the clock because she had to wait on every hole for spectators to settle down.  On Wednesday, Ochoa, the defending champion, had the largest following during the pro-am before the Wegmans L.P.G.A. here. The 18-hole event is a weekly staple of the Tour that some professionals treat as penance for their lavish paydays.  The two pros who teed off before Ochoa barely said a word of greeting to their partners. Ochoa, who is 5 feet 6 inches and 130 pounds, stepped to the first tee and gave each of her four playing partners a warm embrace and a peck on the cheek. She shook their caddies’ hands, then thanked a marshal holding a “Quiet” paddle for volunteering.  One of Ochoa’s partners was Gary Polisseni, a chain-smoking Rochester businessman who has the look and devil-may-care demeanor of the golfer Darren Clarke. Polisseni said he did not know much about Ochoa when he was paired with her for the first time here in 2005. “She charmed us all with her personality and enthusiasm,” he said.  Polisseni donated $50,000 to her charitable foundation this year and offered his private jet to fly her to the United States Open in Minnesota. “This whole experience with Lorena has really turned me into an L.P.G.A. fan more than a PGA fan,” he said.  On the 11th hole, Ochoa found out her partners were keeping track of whose drives and approach shots were deemed the best. Ochoa, they informed her, was trailing. “Oh, really?” she said.  After that, Ochoa’s drives had a little extra oomph and her approach shots were consistently the closest to the pin. Tied for the overall lead at the time, Ochoa’s group made a flurry of birdies down the stretch to win with a net score of 18 under par.  “She enjoys competition, enjoys the pressure, as much as anybody I’ve ever seen,” Brooker said.  Brooker, a former pro soccer player in his native England, is married with two daughters. He and Ochoa are as different as clotted cream and Cool Whip, but somehow they jell. They have collaborated on 18 titles and have not missed a cut.  During competitive rounds, Ochoa likes to give herself incentives. The payoff almost always involves candy.  “She definitely can be persuaded by chocolates,” Brooker said.  Last year, she raised the stakes. During a round in Mexico City in March, Ochoa told Brooker, who does not belong to any organized religion, that she was worried his daughters would be shut out of heaven. How many tournaments would she have to win, she asked, for him to have his children, Hadley, 3, and Madelaine, 2, baptized?  Brooker, taken aback by the question, quickly recovered. “One,” he replied, the Women’s British Open at St. Andrews.  Last August at St. Andrews, in the first women’s pro tour event ever at the Old Course, Ochoa scored a wire-to-wire victory for her first major championship in 24 tries. “It was very special,” she said.  Three months later, Brooker’s daughters were baptized in Connecticut. Ochoa could not make it because of a scheduling conflict, but she was there in spirit.  “The best part about working for Lorena is not the money, the memories, winning the amazing events,” Brooker said. “It’s that being around her makes me want to be a better person.”  A version of this article appears in print on , on Page SP1 of the New York edition with the headline: Keeping Faith, Ochoa Takes Magical Tour. Order Reprints| Today's Paper|Subscribe
Lorena Ochoa, the top-ranked female player in the world, could be the hybrid that rescues golf in the absence of the men’s No. 1, Tiger Woods.