Nancy Lopez

By 1981 Lopez's life, namely her marriage, was crumbling around her. Her relationship with Melton was not withstanding the demands of travel and her celebrity status. She gained weight, and at just five-feet, four-inches, she ended up at over 160 pounds. After three years of marriage, Lopez and Melton divorced in 1983. During these difficult times, she found a friend in her future husband, baseball player Ray Knight.

Lopez first met Knight while on tour in Japan at the same time that Knight was playing in a goodwill exhibition game. Later, after Melton took a job in Cincinnati, he and Knight, who then played for the Cincinnati Reds, became friends. In an odd coincidence, Melton was hired by a station in Houston about the same time that Knight was traded to the Houston Astros. Eventually Lopez and Knight, who was working through his own painful divorce, became close companions. "We started talking about my problems with my marriage, and we realized that we were alike," Lopez explained to People Weekly. "He had been devastated. So was I. I was playing poorly, and Ray could relate to that because he went into a hitting slump when he got his divorce. I really needed somebody because my family wasn't there. The only thing I could rely on was Ray as my friend, helping me through tough times." Friendship eventually turned to romance, and the two were married in October 1983.

Although she won a dozen tournaments between 1980 and 1984, Lopez's megastar status faded. Her naturally smooth swing abandoned her, and suddenly her game was not coming easy. Lopez's unhappiness prior to her divorce was being played out every weekend on the golf course. The tides turned for Lopez after her marriage to Knight and the birth of their first daughter in 1984. In 1985, she won five tournaments including the LPGA Championship and won Player of the Year honors as well as the Vare Trophy for the third time in her career. Sitting out all but four tournaments in 1986 to have her second child, Lopez returned to the tour full-time in 1987.

In 1987, Lopez earned her thirty-fifth tournament title at the Sarasota Classic, where she had her first career win in 1978, qualifying her for the LPGA Tour Hall of Fame. She was inducted as the Hall's eleventh member on July 20, 1987. The following year Lopez won three tournaments and was, for the fourth time in her career, named Player of the Year. She also topped $2 million in earnings, only the fourth LPGA player to do so. In 1989 she again won three tournaments and in 1990 became only the second player in LPGA history to earn more than $3 million. Sitting out most of 1991 to have her third child, Lopez returned in 1992 to win two tournaments.