Dakoda Dowd, 13, fulfills her mother's dream

ORLANDO, Fla. - She wants to be a musician more than a professional golfer. The reporters keep acting as if golf is all she ever thinks about. "They're always like, `Is golf your life?''' said Dakoda Dowd, as she stretched out on a couch and picked at her guitar.

"I'm like, `No, it's not.'''

On Thursday, Dakoda played in the Ginn Open, an LPGA tournament at Reunion Resort in Kissimmee. Dakoda, who just turned 13 a few weeks ago, shot a 2-over 74 in the first round. She's playing in it because of her mother, Kelly Jo Dowd, a 41-year-old former Hooters calendar girl whose breast cancer spread to her liver and bones. Last May, doctors said Kelly Jo had months to live.

It's always been her mom's dream to see Dakoda - one of the nation's top players in her age group - play professionally. The people at Reunion read a story about Kelly Jo's wish and gave Dakoda an exemption.

Since she accepted the exemption about six months ago, she's done dozens and dozens of interviews. Maybe 50, she thinks. She's been on the front page of The New York Times, been on CNN, People magazine. On Sunday, ESPN's SportsCenter said Dakoda's golf has "brought unexpected hope to a family in crisis" and that playing in the tournament is how she is "honoring her terminally ill mom."

It's a lot of pressure.

"I've had a couple of meltdowns," Dakoda said.

The TV anchors freak her out, the ones with the microphones in her face. "They just stare at you," Dakoda said. All the reporters ask the same questions, over and over.

"Are you nervous or excited to play in the tournament?"

"How is this tournament going to change your life?"

"Was it cool meeting Annika Sorenstam?"

Some asked her what life will be like after her mom dies. Dakoda didn't answer them. She was angry they asked. She told her mom about it and then she started crying and her mom started crying and they held each other for a long time. Her mom didn't know what to say. She's become a label - dying mother, terminally ill mother - and people forget how much it hurts her to see those words, how much it hurts Dakoda to think of losing her mom, her best friend.

"I can tell her anything," Dakoda said.

Kelly Jo was first diagnosed with breast cancer in 2002. She had felt a lump in her right breast and her doctor said it was probably nothing, but to get a mammogram. Kelly Jo was busy and put off the test for eight months. The lump was malignant.

She went through surgery, chemotherapy and radiation. She was stripped of all the things that made her feel like a woman, her long, tumbling blond hair. Eyelashes. Nails. Her skin was dry. As a model, she was so focused on her looks. She remembers one day standing naked in front of the mirror. She had scars where her breasts used to be. The only hair left on her body was on her arms. She was frail and sick. She felt ugly.

But she fought through it and got better. Went back to work. Learned her identity was not in her looks - but she was happy to have her hair back. She felt good, but was achy. She thought it was from working out. A bone scan last May showed the cancer had returned, more aggressive, throughout her body.

She wasn't going to go through chemo again. She gave everything she had the first time, she saved nothing for another fight. But Dakoda sat next to her and wrote on her legs with a Sharpie - Don't give up, Don't give up. Kelly Jo went through chemo again, for Dakoda.

So Dakoda is doing this, for her mom.

"This is a great opportunity for mom and me to realize her dream of seeing me play," Dakoda said. "In case she's not here to see it, later on."

Dakoda said playing in an LPGA tournament really has been something she and her mom have talked about since she was little, that it's not something hyped by the media. She's played golf since she was four years old. She's not sure how many trophies she has. Two hundred, maybe. Her dad, Mike, acts like her manager. Her mom has always been on the sidelines, cheering no matter how poorly Dakoda played.

"I'm doing this because she wants me to," she said.

Dakoda said she wants to be famous. Maybe with golf. Definitely with music.

"I do, but it's hard," she said.

"Bottom line," her coach, Lew Smither, said. "She wants to be a star."

She likes the attention she's been getting, but she also doesn't like it. She feels guilty because she's not the only kid who has a parent with cancer. Some of her friends have had a parent die, and her mom is still there. She doesn't want people to think that she thinks she's a great golfer. She knows she's got the exemption because of her mom, not because of her abilities, even if the reporters keep calling her a golf prodigy.

"I'm more normal than what people think," she said.

Dakoda is home-schooled by her dad. She was in the fourth grade when her mom was first diagnosed with cancer. Kelly Jo and Mike pulled her out of school so she could spend more time with her mom and to focus on golf. The Dowds live in a studio apartment at Westin Innisbrook Golf Resort near Tampa. The plan was to live in the condo for a few months and then find something larger. But then Kelly Jo got sick and couldn't work anymore, their income cut in half. The condo is one large room, split in the middle by a divider. Dakoda sleeps on a Murphy bed she puts away every morning.

Dakoda has been playing golf every day. She's got coaches and people who design clubs for her. She works out with a trainer, on site. Much of her life is abnormal. But she tries to do as many normal things as she can. She loves going to the mall and shopping and seeing movies. She's got a boyfriend, although her parents don't want her to call him a boyfriend, just a friend, but she does anyway.

When things get really stressed, she runs on the golf course, runs away for a little bit. She writes music. It helps her when she's angry and overwhelmed. One she remembers is called "Be Free" and it goes something like, "The further and further I try to run, the closer I am to facing my fears." Her fear is her mom dying.

"That's my biggest fear," she said. "And spiders. I hate spiders."

The Dowds are staying in a gorgeous house at Reunion this week, screened-in pool and hot tub, cool tile floors. On Saturday, Dakoda wore short-shorts and a tiny T-shirt that said "Behind every great girl is a guy checking her out." She's thin, a size three, all arms and legs. She and her mom share clothes. Dakoda's blond hair was pulled up into a ponytail. Her eyes are cobalt, with long, dark lashes that curl up naturally at the ends. She looks sweet. She is when she wants to be.

She ran her fingers down the guitar strings, making a piercing sound.

"Koda, stop doing that," her mom said.

Dakoda's eyes narrowed and she smirked and did it again.

"Koda," her mom said. "Stop."

Dakoda is expressive. In a few hours, she can appear like several different girls. Shy, biting her nails, eyes down, arms crossed. Confident, posture straight, eye contact, firm handshake. Outgoing, prankster, teasing. She can be mature for her age, composed, golfing with Annika Sorenstam or chatting with Bobby Ginn, creator of the Ginn Open. Then she can snap back into being a kid, talking about boys, text messaging, pumping her legs fast to go as high as she can on a swing and then jumping off, just because it sounds like a good idea. She's strong-willed. She knows what she likes and what she doesn't like. She can scream, especially at her dad. Her dad understands. She's under so much pressure. She has to take it out on someone. He keeps a note she wrote him for his birthday folded in his wallet. She starts it with Dear Daddy.

"I love you so much and when Mommy eventually passes away I will be strong for you. I will help you as you will help me."

Kelly Jo feels good. She's been going through chemotherapy - a different kind than before. Her hair hasn't fallen out this time, though a toenail did the other day. She doesn't feel like she's dying any time soon.

In the beginning, when Dakoda first got the exemption, Kelly Jo and Mike thought it was great. She would be famous.

"The whole world is going to know about our little girl," Mike said he thought. "Shame on me for thinking that."

"You wise up sometimes," Kelly Jo said.

They said it's too much, too draining being in the spotlight. Now they are focused on using the attention to raise awareness and money for breast cancer. They are thankful for the attention, the opportunities, the donations. But they are ready to get back to their normal lives.

"Sometimes you want something really bad and then you get it and you realize it's not what you thought it'd be," Mike said. "We all agreed - there is no way we want this for Dakoda now."

Last Saturday, Dakoda shrugged when asked if she wanted to play in the tournament. But she said she's nervous and excited. She's appreciative of the opportunity, but.

"I'd rather be a normal teenager," she said, and then she left her guitar on the couch and went to go meet her friends at the pool.

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(c) 2006, The Orlando Sentinel (Fla.). Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune News Service.