Tee off with TSN

2006 Golf Preview

Order it now!

Ladies and gentlemen, meet brand-new teenager Dakoda Dowd. "I got up at 6:21 this morning. Six twenty-one!" she exclaims, eyes wide. "Then I had a frappuccino. A large one. And a Diet Coke. I'm, like, totally hyper."

We're heading out to the driving range at Reunion Resort & Club in Orlando, and somehow I've been drafted to drive the golf cart. "Are you scared to be driving with me?" I ask the caffeinated bundle of energy next to me. "Because you should be." I start down the hill. "Am I going too fast?"

She shoots me a withering look. "I think that guy's walking faster than we're driving."

I laugh. That's totally Dakoda. She's funny, confident and so very 13. She loves Leonardo DiCaprio, concerts and Napoleon Dynamite. She is strikingly pretty, tan and blonde with rosy cheeks but also with the skinned knees of a kid who wiped out running down the hall at home.

She is a fantasy blend of everything it takes to create a superstar: talent -- she is the nation's top-ranked player in her age group -- and the personality and photogenics to light up a million TV screens. The daughter of a social worker and a former Hooters waitress, she practices five hours a day, five days a week and already has piled up 185 tournament wins. Annika Sorenstam calls her a better golfer than she herself was at that age. Playing on the LPGA Tour is her dream, and thanks to a sponsor exemption, she will get a taste of that dream April 27-30 in the Ginn Open.

But notice the pink breast cancer ribbon embroidered on Dakoda's golf bag, the cancer awareness bracelet she never takes off, the initials "KJ" etched on her golf clubs and you realize Dakoda's rare talent isn't the only thing distinguishing her from other 13-year-olds. Her mom is dying.

Kelly Jo, 41, was diagnosed with breast cancer in October 2002. After undergoing a double mastectomy, chemotherapy and radiation treatments, her blood work came back clean. But early last year, Kelly Jo began experiencing soreness and fatigue. She went for a bone scan, and the results were gut-wrenching: stage IV bone and liver cancer, the most advanced form of the disease. The prognosis last May: six to 12 months.

Since then, it has been a battle for every day, every moment. Seven months of chemo kept the cancer manageable, and doctors gave Kelly Jo three months off to let her body recover. Then, just over a week ago, another setback: Tests revealed the cancer was spreading. She went in for surgery last week, two days after her daughter's birthday, to prepare her body for more chemo.

The ordeal has been "crazy-hard," Kelly Jo says. "But Dakoda knows why I'm fighting. I want to be there to help her pick out her prom dress. I want to be there to help her do her hair. I didn't have this beautiful daughter just to lose her at age 13."

Courage is the fire that keeps you going, but even it can't light the darkest corners. When asked if he feels pressure, Dakoda's dad, Mike, grows quiet. "I feel out of control. I feel helpless," he finally says. "I'm absolutely terrified of the future. I can't really think about it. If I allow myself to go there, it can be paralyzing."

The upcoming tournament has been the respite in an otherwise excruciating time, something to focus on besides chemo and bone scans and sleepless nights. Quite simply, it has helped keep Kelly Jo alive. In Kelly Jo's mind, when Dakoda hits that first ball at the Ginn Open, they will have made it. Both of them.

"I'm so looking forward to it," Kelly Jo says. "I've been picking out my outfit for every day. Since we found out, it's been bliss. It's a special dream come true."

In the meantime, the Dowds continue to pray for a miracle. Kelly Jo's surviving to see the tournament will be a major accomplishment; the days and weeks beyond that are bonus time. "I hope to be remembered as a strong, intense woman who fought for what she believed in and gave back to people," Kelly Jo says. "I want to be known as a woman who was given beautiful things in life and gave beautiful things back."

One look at the spirited girl with the sparkling blue eyes and skinned knees and you know Kelly Jo has achieved her goal. She has given back the most beautiful thing of all, a talented, strong-willed, determined young woman.

"My mom told me nothing real can ever die," Dakoda says, fingering the silver angel necklace Kelly Jo gave her for her birthday.

Not love, and not a mother's legacy.

» More features