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BY MARK MAY
It might be an exaggeration to say Albert Ochoa was born with a golf club in his hands, but it sure seems that way. His father introduced him to the game when he was 7 years old and he was soon hooked.
“We’d get to the golf course at 7:30 in the morning and we would stay until dark,” Ochoa recalled about his childhood. “The one thing I loved to do was get to practice before the sun came up.”
Now, after a stellar career on the links that included a No. 1 national ranking and an appearance in a U.S. Open, Ochoa will be inducted into the Rio Grande Valley Sports Hall of Fame. The 34th annual Induction Ceremony will be at 4 p.m. Saturday at the Brownsville Events Center.
He is one of eight inductees. This year’s group also includes Larry Caldwell of Mission (baseball/football), Tony Guerrero (football officiating), David Longhofer of Harlingen (football), Joe Solis of Edcouch-Elsa (football), Richard Thompson of Mission (sports administration), Gabriel Valdez of Weslaco (basketball) and Laura Vasquez of Edinburg (track & field).
This year’s class will bring the Hall of Fame’s total membership to 280.
Ochoa was a teen when his talent began to emerge.
“Nobody started noticing I had talent for golf until I was about 13,” he said. “I was a regular little kid before that.”
He won multiple tournaments on the junior golf circuit, not only in Texas but nationwide. He was receiving flyers from colleges interested in recruiting him before he even entered high school. He reached greater notoriety on the Edinburg High Bobcats’ varsity golf team, where he was twice named to the all-state team (1993 and ‘95) and made all-region four times.
One of the strengths of his game, he says, was a mastery over his irons.
“I was always very confident about my iron play,” Ochoa said. “Anytime I put an iron in my hand, I knew I was going to do something good with it. I was very confident at all times.”
From there, he played at Texas Christian University for four years. He was named a freshman to watch by Golf Week magazine. He later engineered two All-American recognitions. In 1997, he earned the No. 1 ranking in the nation among college golfers and became the Western Athletic Conference Player of the Year.
That led to an invite to the PGA’s MasterCard Colonial Open in Fort Worth. He was the only amateur in a field of more than 100. Being around the best professionals in the world did not bother him, but the prospect of several thousand fans watching from a few feet away was another story.
“The crowds were enormous,” he said. “My legs were shaking so bad, I didn’t think I could hit the golf ball. It took the entire first hole to get over that.”
In 1998, he helped the Horned Frogs to their second straight WAC title and earned honorable mention All-American honors. After turning pro, he qualified for the 1999 U.S. Open at Pinehurst, North Carolina.
“It was the hardest course I’ve ever played,” Ochoa said. “The fairways were extremely narrow. The rough was five inches thick. There were turtleback greens. When you get to the tour, it’s a whole ’nother ball game.”
As it happened, locker assignments were done alphabetically, so Ochoa found himself next to major tournament winners Mark O’Meara and Greg Norman. Phil Mickelson was right below him. At lunch one day that week, he chatted with a guy named Tiger Woods.
“Butch Harmon (who was also Woods’ coach) was coaching me at the time,” Ochoa said.
Ochoa, who now works as a general contractor in construction, spends most of his free time teaching his son the game he loves.
For ticket information for this year’s event, visit the RGV Sports Hall of Fame website at www.rgvshof.net.
Founded in 1985, the RGV Sports Hall of Fame is a not-for-profit organization whose mission it is to recognize men and women who have brought honor and recognition to the Rio Grande Valley through their participation in sports as an athlete, coach, official, trainer, journalist or other sports-related position.
The RGV Sports Hall of Fame collects, preserves and exhibits memorabilia and statistical data of Rio Grande Valley sports for historical preservation, database collection and enjoyment. Some memorabilia items are housed at Doubleday’s Bar and Grill in Port Isabel.
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