Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Driven to tour
West Palm Beach resident playing in Women’s PGA
West Palm golfer mastering LPGA challenges.
Heading into this week’s KPMG Women’s PGA Championship, Lindy Duncan is right where she always wanted to be.
Playing on the LPGA Tour, playing well and feeling right at home.
Duncan, 26, who grew up in Plantation and lives in West Palm Beach, tees off early today in the second major of the season. Now in her second year on tour, she comes into the tournament at Olympia Fields in Illinois off the best finish of her young career.
Almost three weeks ago at the Manulife LPGA Classic in Canada, Duncan tied for seventh. She was among the leaders after the second round when she birdied 10 of her first 13 holes and finished with a 7-under-par 65.
“That was fun,” she said. “I had good distance control, so I was hitting it close to the hole.”
A third-round 67 had her one shot out of the lead, but she finished with a 75. Still, the $43,336 she earned was her best payday ever.
“It was a huge change, going from playing pretty much under the radar to playing in the final groups,” Duncan said. “It was a great experience. I’ve never been in that position.
“I think I learned a lot. I think I
learned to maybe manage myself better. The main thing is really to learn to enjoy it, not force things. At the end of the day, it’s really just another round of golf.”
Getting used to the different challenges presented by the LPGA Tour is an adjustment Duncan has had to make.
That includes everything from learning new golf courses to getting to each tournament to knowing where to stay and where to eat.
A four-time first-team All-American golfer at Duke, Duncan played on the developmental Symetra Tour for two years. The top 10 money winners each year advance to the LPGA Tour, and Duncan just missed out both times.
She got her Tour card by finishing tied for 15th at the LPGA Qualifying Tournament in 2015, but she had such low priority that she had to sit out the first four tournaments of 2016, which gave those who did play a significant head start in earnings.
“I had to play catch-up last year,” said Duncan, who was able to keep her card and improve her status by finishing 89th on the money list with $140,373. Currently, she’s 60th with $105,282.
“Last year was very, very challenging,” she said. “Going from high school to college is a big jump, so is college to the Symetra Tour. Going from the Symetra Tour to the LPGA Tour is a really big jump.
“The courses are harder, the travel schedule is more intense, you don’t get to rest much and as a rookie, you have to play every week [to move up the money list]. Last year was a grind and I’m really happy I got through it.”
That she did came as no surprise to Brandt Moser, one of her high school coaches at American Heritage in Plantation.
“Lindy was mature beyond her years when she was a freshman,” Moser said. “And her work ethic, it’s hard to imagine you can find a person that good, that smart, that down to earth, with that work ethic.
“Nothing Lindy does will ever surprise me. She was extremely self-motivated to be the best she could be in anything she did.”
Duncan said she decided she wanted to play on the LPGA Tour soon after taking up golf at the age of 9.
She committed herself to the game. Her father, David, was her swing coach and they set up a studio inside the house where Duncan could hit balls into a net and study her swing on video.
Duncan later started taking lessons from Martin Hall at The Club at Ibis in West Palm Beach. Hall had taught her father and still works with Duncan.
In her freshman year at American Heritage, Duncan helped the Patriots to the girls’ 1A state championship, but she decided to be home schooled for two years so she could prepare herself to play college golf.
“You have so much more time to practice,” Duncan said. “I didn’t feel that two or three hours a day was enough.”
She returned to American Heritage for her senior year, led the team to the 2008 state championship and won the 1A state individual title, shooting 68-67-135, the third lowest total in the history of the tournament.
At Duke, where she graduated in 2013 with a degree in psychology, Duncan was a three-time Atlantic Coast Conference Player of the Year, the National Player of the Year in 2012 as well as a four-time selection to the All-ACC Academic Team.