Teen Uses Chance at LPGA to Spread Message About Cancer

April 27, 2006 — -- If Dakoda Dowd suffers from stage fright, it will be understandable.

She is just 13, a teenager who will play in her first LPGA Tour event beginning today.

She has been looking forward to this day for months, but nothing can prepare her for that first tee shot -- nothing, of course, but her mom, who will be just outside the ropes, beaming.

That's what this is all about.

"If I get nervous, I'm going to look over and see my mom smiling," Dakoda said. "Once I look over and see her, all the nerves will go away."

Dakoda will help spread her mom's message while competing on the LPGA Tour this week.

Cameras will click, fans will cheer, and a dream will be fulfilled at the Ginn Clubs & Resorts Open near Orlando, Fla. Dakoda will be playing in an LPGA event, with her cancer-stricken mom, Kelly Jo, there to witness it.

She has been building toward this day for nearly six months, since the Ginn Co. announced it would give her a sponsor's exemption to play in the inaugural $2.5 million tournament that will attract just about all the top names in women's golf.

It is a story that has received national attention. Dakoda rolls her eyes when she talks about all the interviews she's done -- somewhere in the range of 100, she figures -- with publications such as People magazine, USA Today and The New York Times.

While some may say it is all too much for a young girl whose mother is ill and whose golf game is still a work in progress, the Dowd family has embraced the attention, seeing it as a way to spread the word about a deadly disease.

"I have a message to put out to the world right now," said Kelly Jo Dowd, 41, during a recent interview at the Westin Innisbrook Resort in Palm Harbor, Fla., where Dakoda was competing in a junior tournament. "There's been some doors opened for me. I'm going to walk through the doors the best I can to relay those messages."

In late 2001, Dakoda was already an accomplished junior player with a smattering of trophies to her credit when Kelly Jo noticed she had a lump in her breast. It wasn't until 10 months later that it was diagnosed as breast cancer.