GOLF / DINAH SHORE TOURNAMENT : Motherhood Now Major Event for Lopez

For many years, Nancy Lopez was not only the dominant player on the LPGA tour, she was the favorite of galleries because of her outgoing personality and charm.

“She was like God,” Beth Daniel said.

Now Lopez is torn between the desire to continue winning on the tour and maintaining a stable home life.

Daniel, the LPGA’s player of the year in 1990 with seven victories, Patty Sheehan, and Betsy King are most likely to be on top of the leader board in women’s tournaments.

As the 20th Nabisco Dinah Shore golf tournament gets under way today at Mission Hills Country Club--it’s one of the four major women’s events--Lopez is not among the favorites.

She won only one tournament last year, the MBS LPGA Classic at Los Coyotes CC, and she has not won on the tour in 1991.

“When I’m out here, I still have the desire to win, but when I go home, golf doesn’t exist in my life,” Lopez said Wednesday.

Lopez and her husband, Ray Knight, a former major league baseball player, have two daughters, and Lopez is in the early stages of pregnancy with a third child. She anticipates that the delivery date will be in late October or early November.

Lopez, who was admitted to the LPGA Hall of Fame in 1987 after winning 35 tournaments and a major championship, is still committed to winning. She has 43 victories in her career that began in 1978 when she won a record nine tournaments.

However, she said she doesn’t practice as much as she should when she’s home.

“Ray puts pressure on me to practice,” Lopez said. “He has a way of doing it that makes me mad. He once said I was one of the worst chippers he ever saw. Now I’m not.”

Because she says she doesn’t practice as diligently as she should, it’s difficult to get her timing back in competition.

Nonetheless, she doesn’t seem frustrated.

Planning dinner for her family has a higher priority than tedious hours of practicing.

Lopez is 34. If so motivated, she could probably challenge Daniel, Sheehan, Cathy Gerring, Pat Bradley and the other top players again.

She hasn’t hinted that she will retire soon, but the thought has most likely crossed her mind.

“What makes it tough is when I’m playing,” Lopez said. “People will say, ‘Please don’t ever retire. We want to continue to watch you play golf.’

“I like my life, my children and my husband and just being normal. I haven’t been normal since I was 8 years old. I’ve lived out of a suitcase all my life. It’s just nice to wake up and make breakfast.”

King, the defending champion who also won here in 1987, said she is resisting the kind of pressure that was placed so heavily on Curtis Strange last year.

Strange won the U.S. Open in 1988 and ’89 but couldn’t make it three in a row. He has said he put too much pressure on himself.

King, 35, won the U.S. Women’s Open in 1989 and ’90.

“Everyone would like to play well in a major tournament, but you just don’t know how you’re going to be playing at the time.

“I’ve been very fortunate the last few years that I’ve been competitive. I think I can play well on the harder courses, and the majors for the most part are on some of the harder courses we play.”

However, King said she doesn’t put as much premium on winning a major event as, say, Jack Nicklaus does.

Regarding the Dinah Shore tournament, King said: “This tournament has done more for women’s golf than any other event because it was the first big-money event and has had a lot of television exposure.”

The total purse this week is $600,000, with the winner getting $90,000.