Female feline

Mexican golfer Lorena Ochoa has already captured LPGA player of the year honors twice | Mark Bergin

The comparisons to Tiger Woods are unavoidable—and hardly a stretch. Mexican golfer Lorena Ochoa, 26, has already captured LPGA player of the year honors in 2006 with six victories and 2007 with eight victories. She is a near lock for the award again in 2008, collecting wins like bananas—that is, in bunches.

But for all that success, Ochoa appears refreshingly unimpressed with herself. She is wont to follow dominating performances with praise for her opponents and dips in nearby water hazards. That show of personality has endeared her to fellow Mexicans, who selected her Mexican of the Year in 2007 over President Felipe Calderón.

The award had as much to do with strokes of philanthropy as it did the golf ball. Ochoa's Catholic foundation operates an elementary school and plans to build a high school in an impoverished area outside Guadalajara. The world's No. 1 female golfer often drops by to play basketball with students during recess.