Short Shots

KGA season kicks off this week
It’s finally here. After a long, hard winter the amateur golf season in Kansas kicks off this

week as the KGA hosts its Mid-Amateur Championship at Meadowbrook Golf & Country Club in Prairie Village on May 3-4. The 36-hole stroke play championship is open to players age 25 and older, and has gross and net scoring within three age divisions.
   Last year, University of Kansas men’s golf coach Kit Grove overcame a record five-shot deficit after one round and held off Wichita’s Steve Newman and Charlie Stevens in a playoff to win the Mid-Am title at Basehor’s Falcon Lakes Golf Club. It was the first KGA championship for Grove. The head coach tees off in the first round of the Mid-Am this year with Overland Park’s Chandler McCray and Steve McGrevey.
   The KGA championship season continues later this month as Salina Country Club is the site for the Senior Four-Ball Championship on May 17-18 and the KGA Public Links Championship is set for May 22-23 at Colbert Hills Golf Club in Manhattan.

KGF Marathon cancelled due to weather
   The rain, rain would not go away. Too much precipitation the weekend of April 24-25 forced the cancellation of the 2010 Kansas Golf Foundation Marathon fundraiser. Officials at Leawood

South Country Club said heavy rains made the course unplayable for the event which raises funds for the KGF’s Junior Scholarship program. The event will not be rescheduled.
   The Foundation encourages participants to conduct a “golf marathon” of their own and collect pledges for the holes they play. Anyone interested in making a donation to the program, which provides scholarships to five new Kansas college students each year, can do that by contacting the KGF at foundation@kansasgolf.org or (785) 842-4833, ext. 205.
   For further information on the KGF go to www.kansagolf.org/foundation/.

2010 Mid-Amateur Team moved up one week
   Due to a scheduling conflict, the dates for the 2010 Kansas Golf Association’s Mid-Amateur Team Championship at Indian Hills Country Club have been changed.
   The original dates of Oct. 11-13 have been moved forward one week to Oct. 4-6.
   The new entry deadline date for this championship is now 4 p.m. Sept. 24. The KGA apologizes for this scheduling change and looks forward to your participation.
   Please feel free to contact the KGA office if you have any questions.

LPGA’s top player Ochoa retires at 28
   Her voice breaking and eyes watering, Lorena Ochoa said goodbye to golf.
   She made her farewell (April 23) after a career in which she reigned as No. 1 for three years, won two majors and 27 tour events, and was honored for four straight years as the

LPGA Tour's Player of the Year.
   She was not alone in being swept up in the moment. Her father, Javier, dabbed away tears with a tissue at the retirement news conference. Her brother and manager, Alejandro, broke down in his remarks.
   The 28-year-old Ochoa has never forgotten her Mexican roots, her family and her friends. That grounded sense of self was not lost on those all across golf.
   "We all know that Lorena's golf has spoken for itself," LPGA Tour vice president Jane Geddes said, sitting alongside Ochoa. "But what has always been the most impressive to the players is the way in which Lorena was able to balance her rise to greatness with such humility."
   Ochoa made her surprise announcement April 20 and explained it further just days later.
   She steps away as an active player after last week’s Tres Marias Championship in Morelia, Mexico. She left the door slightly ajar to play a few more tournaments, including her own Lorena Ochoa Invitational each November in her hometown of Guadalajara.
   But a full-blown return seems unlikely. She wants to raise a family -- she was married in December to Aeromexico chief executive Andres Conesa -- and run her charity foundation.
   "What I am trying to say is that the door is open in a way," she said. "The opportunities may come to play one or two tournaments in two years or three years but not a full season. No."
   Ochoa leaves just two years after former No. 1 Annika Sorenstam stepped away from golf to start a family, again depriving the struggling LPGA Tour of its top star.

-- ESPN.com