By Dave Allen

updated 7:15 p.m. ET Jan. 21, 2008

Mexico's Lorena Ochoa is among the most recognizable athletes in Latin America today. But Ochoa isn't the only Latina golfer to overcome long odds and achieve hero status in her native country. In 2006, Paraguay's Julieta Granada set an LPGA Tour record for rookie earnings with $1,633,586 — more than half of which she won at the season-ending ADT Championship. Two months later, in January 2007, Granada led Paraguay to a seven-stroke victory over the U.S. in the Women's World Cup in South Africa. While the 21-year-old suffered a minor sophomore slump in '07, posting three top-10 finishes but no wins through October, she hopes to cash in again in 2008.

"Last year was like a roller coaster, up and down," Granada says. "It was only my second year on tour, so there were many things I still had to learn on the golf course. I think that will make me a better player in the future."

At the time of her ADT win, Granada had barely turned 20, and the $1 million winner's check — the largest in the history of women's golf — was almost inconceivable to her. A self-described "low-maintenance girl," Granada rewarded herself with a Range Rover Sport with a multi-lingual navigational system and enough room in the back for two sets of clubs and her poodle, Bimba.

The indulgence was understandable. Granada grew up in Paraguay, a country with only six golf courses and a per capita income of $1,400 a year. Granada's mother, Rosa, had been introduced to the game at age 8 by her father. At the time, there were only nine golf holes in the entire country. (Granada's father, Alejandro, has worked as a greenkeeper for two years at the Yacht Golf Club in Asunción.) As a child, Granada would walk the course with her mother, and Rosa's love for the game quickly transferred itself to her daughter. At age 4, Granada entered her first tournament, a nine-hole event in Argentina played from 150 yards and in. "I got to the eighth hole and I said to my dad, who was my caddie, 'Can you lift me up because I'm very tired?'?" Granada recalls. "He said, 'If I lift you up, you'll be disqualified.' I said, 'Okay, I can keep going.' I won the tournament, and that gave me the incentive to play more."

Granada entered the same tournament for eight straight years and won each time. She caught the attention of David Leadbetter's staff when she was 9, and accepted his invitation to join the Leadbetter Academy in Bradenton, Fla., in 2001. She and her mother made the move to the U.S. together, and at first struggled to make ends meet. They rented a car for the first four months, then Granada suggested they trade the car in for bicycles to save money. They started with one bike ("You had to go 100 times to the market," Rosa says), then purchased a second one a few weeks later. The duo rode everywhere together — to church, the library, the supermarket; they even pedaled to the academy with clubs on their backs, holding an umbrella in one hand on rainy days. "After that, I can ride in the circus," Rosa says with a laugh.

The initial adjustment was hard on Granada. "In Paraguay, I had a normal life, and I played golf in the afternoons. It was very comfortable. But in the U.S., I had to make golf a priority. Sometimes, it got a bit overwhelming. I'd say to my mom, 'I love golf, but I just want to go back home.'"

She stuck it out, however, working hard and soon becoming a star in the U.S. amateur ranks. She was named to the American Junior Golf Association All-America Team (2001–2004), and won the prestigious U.S. Girls' Junior Champion-ship in 2004. After competing on the Futures Tour in 2005, she finished tied for sixth at the LPGA Final Qualifying Tournament to gain fully exempt status on the 2006 LPGA Tour.

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