Westhampton - One of the most graceful, talented golfers in the women's game has surprisingly announced her retirement on Tuesday.

Lorena Ochoa, the top ranked golfer in the women's game the past three years, winner of 27 titles and two Major Championships, will be holding a press conference on Friday to discuss her reasons for leaving the game at the young age of 28. Speculation is that she will focus on having a family. This past December, Ochoa married Andres Conesa, the chief executive of Aeromexico Airlines. He has three children from a previous marriage.

It may not be a permanent leave. At least, I hope not! The Mexican newspaper Reforma is reporting that Ochoa could return to competitive golf after a break.

Ochoa has one of the most fluid swings in the women's game. And she is one of the most likable athletes in the world today. Her rapid success, winning 27 times in six years, never got to her head. She is always as sweet and cheerful as can be. As privileged as she was, growing up in a wealthy family in Guadalajara, Mexico, and as successful as she became, particularly in Mexico, where she became the most successful golfer there of all time, she never forgot to talk to and visit with workers and her fans.

Rafael Alarcon with Ochoa. (golfdigest.com)

Very soon after achieving success in golf, she established the Lorena Ochoa Foundation which operates a school in Guadalajara for underprivileged kids.

I love the story when she was 11-years-old, she approached Rafael Alarcon who had won the 1979 Canadian Amateur Championship. He was practicing at Guadalajara Country Club and she asked him to help her with her game. When he asked what her goal was, she said she wanted to be the best player in the world. And she became just that, overtaking Annika Sorenstam in 2007 to become the top ranked female player in the game! That same year, Ochoa also became the first female golfer to earn more than $4 million in a single season.

I'll never forget her famed British Open victory at the Old Course at St. Andrews for her first Major title in August of 2007. If you are going to win a Major, what a historic place to do it! And then she earned her second Major Championship in the very next Major on the calendar - the Kraft Nabisco title in April of 2008. I remember when she celebrated by jumping in the pond on the 18th green, as is the custom after one wins the 'Dinah Shore.'

Ochoa turned pro in 2002 and played her first LPGA Tour event in 2003. The LPGA Tour has the most difficult qualifications of any sports organization to get into their Hall of Fame. One of their qualifying criteria is that an LPGA Tour member has to be active on the Tour for 10 years.

Ochoa needs another two years of active play! Ochoa already earned the 27 points required to get inducted. She did that in 2008 when she won the Corona Championship in her native Mexico, becoming the second youngest LPGA member to earn the necessary point requirement.

It will be interesting to hear what she has to say about the 'two more year playing requirement' at her press conference on Friday. Maybe she is pregnant and plans to return in a few years? Surely the Tour's best player values getting into the LPGA Tour Hall of Fame one day! It's a shame she is retiring. Without her and Sorenstam, who retired in 2008 for good to have a family, the LPGA Tour is without a major dominant star and player. And in these tough economic times, they need a likable, charismatic player to pick up the game and help sell it to sponsors, fans and the media! Michelle Wie was supposed to be that player. She certainly has the game and the 'potential' but she'll need to start putting wins together.

And it will be tough to find someone with the personality of Ochoa, who is competitive but sweet, and as humble and charitable as can be. Ochoa was a winner. And too bad for golf, she has decided to leave the game. Hopefully, she'll be back! The Tour needs her and more players like her!