Teen to test skills vs. pros

Section: Sports, Pg. 10c

REUNION, Fla. -- Kelly Jo Dowd curls up in a blanket on her bed, smiling as her daughter's laughter echoes from the living room of their guest house along the 10th fairway. Dakoda bounces in and out of the bedroom, joking and making faces, before finally settling down with her head in her mother's lap.

Kelly Jo slowly strokes her hair, comforting her daughter in so many ways. Thursday, 13-year-old Dakoda will become one of the youngest to play an LPGA tournament. She tees off in the Ginn Clubs and Resorts Open, fulfilling a family wish after the breast cancer Kelly Jo thought she beat returned to her bones and liver.

"We know what this is all about. It's about her and I, and me watching her complete a dream," Kelly Jo says. "A door has opened. And we want to make sure we walk through it the right way."

Dakoda smiles at her mother. Medication has left Kelly Jo, 41, nauseous and weak, but there's a renewed energy as she embraces the moment. Tuesday, Kelly Jo watched Dakoda practice with Annika Sorenstam and Paula Creamer.

"I don't really think of a score. I'm competitive and want to do well," Dakoda says. "But there's no real score I'm looking at. These are very hard conditions, and these women are really good. This is as good as it gets."

Playing mostly in Florida, Dakoda has won many junior titles, including two last year in nine events. She's played three times this year, finishing second, third and fifth. Dakoda, a home-schooled student, also helped the Northside Christian (St. Petersburg, Fla.) girls team win the 2004 Class A state title.

She'll play a Reunion Resort course that measures 6,531 yards, about 500 yards longer than she's used to playing.

"It doesn't matter what she shoots at all," says Morgan Pressel, whose mother died of a similar cancer. "She's here to have fun, and that's all that it should be."

Bobby Ginn, a real estate developer whose company sponsors the tournament, gave Dakoda a spot after being touched by her family's story in November. Dowd was added to the field under a first-time exemption approved by LPGA Commissioner Carolyn Bivens, giving the event 145 players. Thus, she's not taking away a spot in a field that includes 49 of the top 50 money winners.

Under LPGA rules, non-members who shoot 88 or higher in the first round are given the option to withdraw or be disqualified. That rule was waived for Dowd, meaning she will play at least two rounds of the 72-hole event. Amateur Andia Winslow, cousin of NFL Hall of Fame tight end Kellen Winslow, received one of two sponsor's exemptions, but she will not be exempt from the "88" rule.

"It's not about golf," Ginn says. "We did it because we heard the story and she was from Florida and we had the ability to get the exemption. ... It accomplishes all we hoped to accomplish, to give her an opportunity to play here."

Kelly Jo has jumped at the chance to do more than watch Dakoda play against the world's best. She has involved herself with several cancer fundraiser groups, working from the Dowds' one-bedroom condo at the Westin Innisbrook Resort in Palm Harbor, Fla.

"There's millions of women who have breast cancer every year," Kelly Jo says. "Who's going to be the one to invite people into their life and open up and just talk about all aspects of it? Me. I'm one of those people. Obviously, there's more women that would probably do it. But it's right up my alley. ... The more I talk about it, the better it makes me feel."

Kelly Jo worked at Hooters for 20 years, rising from waitress and calendar girl to a general manger of the Palm Harbor restaurant. Hooters recently held a fundraising event for the family and paid for Dakoda to have a membership at Innisbrook so she can hone her skills.

"I'm just taken by all the human kindness and love that everyone has shown us," Kelly Jo says. "Because of all this positive energy, it's made me feel healthier and healthier."

In late 2001, Kelly Jo discovered a lump in her breast. She saw a doctor but waited about 10 months to schedule a mammogram. By then it was too late. She had a double mastectomy in October 2002. Intense chemotherapy caused her hair to fall out, but the cancer went into remission.

"I want so much while I'm here, and with God's will, to talk to other women and tell them: Do not do what I did. Do not find a lump and wait and do nothing. This is a disease like most diseases (that) if you catch it quick, you can save yourself."

Last May, she learned the disease had reappeared in her liver, hip and near her spine. Doctors gave her about two years to live. Recent chemotherapy burned out a vein in her arm and she now has a port installed near her collarbone.

Doctors have stopped giving timetables. The Dowds say they aren't interested, anyway.

"We're beating it back," husband Mike Dowd says. "We're making headway."

Excitement fills Kelly Jo's voice as she talks about Dakoda checking in at the registration desk. When they went to the locker room, she noticed her name spelled wrong. Kelly Jo quickly asked to correct "Dakota" to Dakoda.

"Every second counts. It all means a ton," she says.

LPGA records are incomplete, but Dakoda would be among the four or five youngest to play a tour event. Beverly Klass was 10 in 1967 and Pressel (2001) and Michelle Wie (2002) were 12 when they received exemptions. Dowd turned 13 on April3.

One downside to the media's interest: It cuts into Dakoda's time with her mom.

Dakoda pops up from her mother's lap and leaves the room. She returns with a swimsuit dangling from a hanger and tries to coax mom into the pool with her.

Kelly Jo rolls her eyes like most mothers with a teenage daughter who's already growing up fast.

"My goal isn't to see her play in the LPGA and just lay around and die," Kelly Jo says. "My goal is to experience this and, with all the positive feedback and prayers and feelings, is to continue my fight and battle this and stick around for as long as I possibly can. I want to see as much of her as possible, to listen to her play her guitar, to see her go to her first dance, to help her pick out her wedding dress. To do all the mother things you sometimes take for granted doing with your daughter."

(c) USA TODAY, 2006