Gaby López walked off the 18th green at Riviera Country Club on Sunday with a final-round 68, one shot out of a US Women’s Open title she absolutely earned. Nelly Korda birdied the par-5 17th at the very last moment to take the lead, then made a wobbling par on 18 that barely fell in. López finished −7 for the tournament, tied with Charley Hull for second, and said five words that summed up a decade of professional golf: “I can win a major.”
She’s right. And if you’ve watched her climb from 486th in the world in 2014 to a $1 million payday yesterday, you know it’s been coming.
Here’s everything there is to know about the most underrated player on the LPGA Tour.
Quick Answer: Gaby López is a 32-year-old Mexican professional golfer who has won 3 times on the LPGA Tour and holds official career earnings of over $6.7 million. She married entrepreneur Santiago Carranza in December 2023. She is not related to Nancy López. She just finished tied for second at the 2026 US Women’s Open – the best major result of her career.
Who Is Gaby López?
Her full name is Maria Gabriela López Butron. Born on November 9, 1993, in Mexico City, she’s a Mexican professional golfer who has competed on the LPGA Tour since 2016. She stands 5 foot 6, has three LPGA Tour victories to her name, and has officially earned over $6.7 million in prize money across her career. She’s a graduate of the University of Arkansas, a three-time Olympian, and the second Mexican-born player ever to win on the LPGA Tour.
She’s 32 years old and, frankly, playing the best golf of her life right now.
Gaby López’s Three LPGA Tour Wins – And How Each One Happened
Three LPGA Tour wins doesn’t sound like a massive number on paper. Look at how she won each of them and the picture changes completely.
Win 1 – Blue Bay LPGA, November 2018
She shot 70-71-66-73 at the Blue Bay Golf Club in Sanya, China, and won by one stroke over world No. 4 Ariya Jutanugarn – on her 25th birthday. The win earned her $315,000 and made her the second Mexican-born player ever to win on the LPGA Tour, following only Lorena Ochoa. Winning on your birthday by beating one of the best players alive is the kind of story that defines careers.
Win 2 – Diamond Resorts Tournament of Champions, January 2020
This one took seven extra holes. López shot 65-69-71-66 to force a playoff with Nasa Hataoka and Inbee Park — one of the deepest playoff fields you’ll see at any level. Park was eliminated on the third extra hole. López closed it out with a birdie on the seventh, earned $180,000, and moved to 56th in the world. Beating Inbee Park in sudden death is not something that happens by accident.
Win 3 – Dana Open, September 2022
She saved the best scorecard for last. A final-round 63 at Highland Meadows Golf Club in Sylvania, Ohio – a round that included birdies on the final three holes – pushed her past Megan Khang by one shot and earned her $262,500. That 63 is the lowest competitive round she has ever posted as a professional. Three wins in six years, each decided by exactly one stroke or a playoff. That’s not luck. That’s a player who knows how to close.
| Win | Tournament | Year | Score | Margin | Prize |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Blue Bay LPGA | 2018 | −8 (280) | 1 stroke | $315,000 |
| 2 | Diamond Resorts TOC | 2020 | −13 (271) | Playoff (7 holes) | $180,000 |
| 3 | Dana Open | 2022 | −18 (266) | 1 stroke | $262,500 |
How Gaby López Became Mexico’s Second LPGA Winner
Lorena Ochoa retired in 2010. Eight years passed without a Mexican-born player winning on the LPGA Tour. That gap mattered more in Mexico City than it probably did anywhere else in the world – and López grew up in the middle of it, watching Ochoa’s highlight reels and deciding that’s who she wanted to be.
When López won at Blue Bay in 2018, she didn’t just add a trophy. She ended a drought that an entire generation of Mexican junior golfers had been waiting out. Ochoa has been an active mentor throughout, not just a distant idol. “She showed us that a player from Mexico could succeed in the LPGA,” López has said, “especially when she became number one for so long. She is such an incredible person off the course. Lorena has been a huge mentor for me.” Ochoa, for her part, called López a great player with a lot of heart who would become one of the tour’s future stars – before her first win even materialized.
That relationship built something bigger than individual careers. López has expanded on Ochoa’s legacy by actively mentoring younger Latin players, serving as an LPGA Tour ambassador, and designing her own cap brand specifically for women golfers. She didn’t just inherit the mantle. She widened it.
Gaby López’s Age, Early Life, and the Golf Start Nobody Talks About
López started playing golf at age five at the Club de Golf México in Mexico City, introduced to the game by her father. She made her first hole-in-one at age seven – in a tournament, not a casual round. At 12, she quit gymnastics and dance to focus exclusively on golf. By 15, she’d earned a sponsor’s exemption to compete in her first LPGA Tour event, the 2009 MasterCard Classic. A year later, she won the Callaway Junior World Championship at Torrey Pines in San Diego – the same golf course that has hosted some of the most iconic moments in professional golf history.
She attended Sagrado Corazón school in Mexico City for middle and high school, then enrolled at the University of Arkansas, where she played collegiate golf and graduated in May 2016 with a degree in Communications and Sports Management. She did this while simultaneously playing her LPGA Tour rookie season – a detail most bios gloss over entirely. Add that she is bilingual in both Spanish and English and you start to get a picture of someone who has been building for something bigger than just a tour card.
Gaby López’s Husband – The December 2023 Wedding Story
Gaby López married Santiago Carranza on December 16, 2023, in a ceremony held in Mexico City. The couple had been together for several years before making it official, bonding partly through their shared connection to golf – Carranza founded ABX Tour, a golf analytics company focused on the LPGA Tour, and serves as founder and CIO of Summit Management. His professional background covers software development, chemical engineering, portfolio management, and angel investing. He is, by any measure, deeply involved in the golf world from the business and data side.
“I have no words to describe what happened yesterday,” López wrote on Instagram the morning after the ceremony. “Gracias to everyone for coming and making the best day in history. It surpassed our expectations.”
She’s still married to Carranza as of June 2026. The “is Gaby Lopez still married” searches that surface seem to come from older articles written before the wedding, when sources described the relationship as not yet formalized. The December 2023 ceremony made it official.
Is Gaby López Related to Nancy López? The Answer
No. Gaby López and Nancy López are not related in any way. They share a surname because López is one of the most common surnames in any Spanish-speaking country – the connection begins and ends there.
That said, they do have a genuine personal relationship. Nancy López grew up in Roswell, New Mexico, with Mexican-heritage parents, and has been openly supportive of the younger López throughout her career. “She’s been very supportive since I started playing on tour,” Gaby told Golf Channel. “She’s always been there for me whenever I need advice or just a friendly conversation.” Nancy called Gaby “a great player with a lot of heart” who would become one of the tour’s future stars. They’re not family. They are colleagues across two generations of golf sharing the same last name and a connected story.
Gaby López and the Olympics: From Competitor to Flag Bearer
Three Olympics. That stat alone puts Gaby López in a category very few LPGA Tour players occupy.
She competed in Rio 2016, finishing 31st. At the Tokyo 2020 Olympics – held in 2021 due to the pandemic – the Mexican Olympic Committee chose her as one of the country’s flag bearers, and she carried the Mexican flag alongside diver Rommel Pacheco at the Opening Ceremony on July 23, 2021. “It’s a huge honor to be able to represent my country in women’s golf in Mexico, which isn’t a huge sport,” she told Golf Channel. “To just inspire little girls and for them to see what a golfer and little girl can do to achieve their dreams – that’s why I play golf.” At Paris 2024, she delivered her best Olympic result to that point, finishing T29.
Her Olympic record doesn’t include a medal. But the arc – 31st, T36, T29 – shows clear progression across three Games. The 2028 Los Angeles Olympics are already in her thinking. “I’m so excited that we’re playing the Olympic Games here in 2028,” she said after her T2 at Riviera this week. “I’m just looking forward to a Latin crowd.”
Gaby López’s World Ranking, Net Worth, and the 2026 Breakthrough
López ranked 36th in the Women’s World Golf Rankings 2026 at the end of 2025 – the best year-end position she’s ever held. For context, she started 2014 ranked 486th in the world. That climb hasn’t been linear: she hit a career-best 37th in 2022 after the Dana Open win, dipped to 77th in 2024 after a difficult season, then rebuilt to 36th by year-end 2025. The ranking arc is the story of a player who keeps coming back.
Her official LPGA career earnings through the start of this week stood at $6.7 million. The T2 at the 2026 US Women’s Open adds approximately $1 million to that total in a single week. Her estimated net worth sits between $4 million and $6 million when you factor in her sponsorship portfolio — which has included Titleist, Telcel, AeroMexico, Punta Mita, and Stephens Investment Management – plus income from her women’s cap brand and ambassador appearances.
Coming into Riviera, she’d already earned $460,000 in official prize money in 2026. The runner-up finish at the US Women’s Open is the kind of result that reshapes a player’s trajectory – and her world ranking will reflect it.
| Year | World Ranking |
|---|---|
| 2014 | 486 |
| 2016 | 84 |
| 2018 | 90 |
| 2020 | 56 |
| 2022 | 37 |
| 2024 | 77 |
| 2025 | 36 |
What Is Gaby López Famous For? (And What People Get Wrong)
One quick clarification before anything else: Gaby López the golfer and “Gabby Lopez” the ABS-CBN executive are two completely different people. Eugenio “Gabby” Lopez III is a Filipino media mogul who chairs ABS-CBN Corporation in the Philippines. He’s unrelated to Gaby López in every possible sense – different country, different industry, different person.
Gaby López the golfer is famous for three things above everything else. First, she’s the second Mexican-born player ever to win on the LPGA Tour – an achievement that means something specific to every junior golfer in Mexico who grew up without Lorena Ochoa to watch anymore. Second, she carried Mexico’s flag at the Tokyo Olympics, one of the most visible moments any Mexican athlete can have. Third, her final rounds under pressure – the 63 at the Dana Open, the seven-hole playoff in 2020, Sunday’s 68 at Riviera with a major on the line – have produced some of the best clutch scoring in LPGA Tour history.
The broader golf media has never quite given her full credit for any of it.
Frequently Asked Questions
Gaby López is famous for being the second Mexican-born LPGA Tour winner in history, after Hall of Famer Lorena Ochoa. She carried Mexico’s flag at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, won the 2022 Dana Open with a final-round 63, and finished T2 at the 2026 US Women’s Open at Riviera Country Club — the best major finish of her career.
Gaby López has not yet won a major championship. Her best major result is a T2 at the 2026 US Women’s Open at Riviera Country Club in Pacific Palisades, California, where she shot 68-71-70-68 and finished one shot behind Nelly Korda. Her previous best was a T3 at the 2023 Amundi Evian Championship. She has made 49 major starts with 32 cuts made and three top-10 results.
Gaby López is a 32-year-old professional golfer from Mexico City, full name Maria Gabriela López Butron. She has won three LPGA Tour events – the 2018 Blue Bay LPGA, 2020 Diamond Resorts Tournament of Champions, and the 2022 Dana Open – has represented Mexico in three Olympic Games, and holds official career earnings over $6.7 million.
Gaby López started playing golf at age five at the Club de Golf México in Mexico City, introduced by her father. She made her first hole-in-one in a competition at age seven. At 12, she quit gymnastics and dance to focus on golf full-time. She played her first LPGA Tour event at 15, earned a sponsor’s exemption to do so, and won the Callaway Junior World Championship at Torrey Pines at age 16.
Gaby López is fully bilingual in Spanish and English. She grew up in Mexico City and attended college at the University of Arkansas, giving her native-level fluency in both languages. She conducts LPGA Tour press conferences in English and switches to Spanish for Mexican media settings – sometimes within the same interview.
No. Gaby López and Nancy López are not related. They share a very common Spanish surname but have no family connection. Nancy López, a Hall of Famer born in California to Mexican-heritage parents, has been a supportive figure in Gaby’s career. The two know each other well and have spoken publicly about their mutual admiration — but they’re colleagues across generations, not relatives.
This question is actually about Hall of Famer Nancy López, not Gaby López — the two are unrelated. Nancy López married baseball player Ray Knight in 1982. That marriage ended in divorce. As of recent reports, Nancy López has since remarried and lives in Florida with her husband Ed Russell.
Yes. Gaby López married Santiago Carranza on December 16, 2023, in a ceremony held in Mexico City. Carranza is an entrepreneur with roles spanning golf analytics (founder of ABX Tour), investment management (founder and CIO of Summit Management), software development, and angel investing. He has been a consistent presence in her support network throughout her professional career.
Gaby López’s official LPGA career earnings exceed $6.7 million, with a T2 finish at the 2026 US Women’s Open adding approximately $1 million in a single week. Her total net worth — accounting for sponsorship deals with Titleist, Telcel, AeroMexico, Punta Mita, and Stephens, plus her women’s cap brand — is estimated between $4 million and $6 million.
Gaby López Is Ready for a Major. The Score Says So.
She walked off Riviera one shot short of history. She also walked off knowing the difference between herself and the best player in the world this week was a single birdie on a par-5 at the very last minute.
That’s not defeat. That’s proof.
Gaby López has been one of the most underrated players on the LPGA Tour for the better part of a decade, three wins in six years, each decided by the thinnest margin possible, and an Olympic platform that made her one of Mexico’s most visible athletes. She built herself from 486th in the world without anyone’s permission or anyone’s plan. The final-round 68 at Riviera, in a US Women’s Open, with the crown on the line, is simply the most recent chapter in a career that has always moved at its own pace and on its own terms.
For context on the player she shared the leaderboard with all week, see our full profile on Charley Hull. Two different players, two different paths – both at the same place on Sunday, one shot from a major title.
Watch this space.