BELLEAIR, Fla. — Lindy Duncan thinks about it a lot.
It’s not something that many would want to remember, but it gives Duncan some perspective, showing her how far she’s come and how resilient she can be, particularly with her back against the wall. And it reminds her to savor the moment she’s currently in at The ANNIKA driven by Gainbridge at Pelican.
At 2022 LPGA Q-Series, Duncan came to the final hole well inside the top-45 and ties cutoff that would allow her to improve her status for the 2023 LPGA Tour season. She was sitting at 3-under through 17 holes on Sunday in Dothan, Ala., a solid round at a challenging Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail – Highland Oaks course and was feeling good about where she stood with just one hole to play. Then, as sometimes happens in the game of golf, things took a turn for the worse.
Duncan made a quadruple bogey 8 on the par-4 18th hole. Wiping tears from her eyes, Duncan hustled off the golf course, thinking her bid for LPGA Tour status in 2023 was completely off the table, that she’d once again have to fight to survive as a professional golfer.
But the story didn’t end there.
Duncan hovered on the top-45 cutline for the rest of the afternoon, bouncing back and forth while the rest of the field finished their rounds. When the final scores were tallied up, Duncan had ultimately finished in a tie for 38th, just a couple of shots inside the final cutoff, and earned status for the next season. Though it wasn’t full status like Duncan was hoping for, it was still something, and she resolved to make the best out of whatever playing opportunities she received in the new year.
Duncan missed the cut in her first LPGA Tour start of the year at the LOTTE Championship presented by Hoakalei, and then teed it up in three tournaments on the Epson Tour, two of which saw her finish in the top 10, as she tied for second at the Inova Mission Inn Resort & Club Championship and tied for ninth at the Champions Fore Change Invitational.
The Duke University alum then returned to the LPGA Tour, making three straight cuts before recording her season-best finish of solo third at the Dana Open. And it was that top-five that made the biggest difference for Duncan.
The points she earned at Highland Meadows Golf Club moved Duncan from 154th to 62nd in the Race to the CME Globe, and it was that jump that was most critical for the 32-year-old as she was reshuffled up just a few weeks later, moving from Category 15 to Category 8 on the Priority List, playing her way to more LPGA Tour starts and more opportunities to earn full status for 2024.
In her seven starts since the reshuffle, Duncan missed three cuts and recorded a best finish of T34 at last week’s TOTO Japan Classic, good enough golf to move her to 92nd in the Race to the CME Globe, eight spots inside the top-100 cutoff to avoid another trip to LPGA Q-Series. Now, through two rounds at The ANNIKA driven by Gainbridge at Pelican, Duncan sits in a tie for fourth at 8-under overall after carding rounds of 67 and 65, and is currently projected to move to 78th in the Race, which would give her full status for the 2024 season.
But she still has 36 holes to play before things shape up for next year, and while she knows that she needs to perform this week with her LPGA Tour status on the line, Duncan is enjoying some stress-free golf in Belleair, Fla., and will look to card two more rounds in the red over the weekend at Pelican Golf Club as she works to break into the top 80 in the Race to the CME Globe.
“Grateful to be playing and feeling good about my game, and just kind of focusing on cleaning up some stuff,” said Duncan, who carded her sixth straight round in the 60s on day two. “I've felt that stress the last couple of years and it's really hard. It's been a huge weight off. Even in Japan, I could have been thinking about it and I really didn't. I just enjoyed my game and playing such a cool tournament, so I'm really happy to be here.”
Duncan has played in the previous three editions of The ANNIKA, missing one cut and earning a best finish of T27 in 2020. Her Friday 65 is her new low round in the event, and before today, she had never recorded back-to-back rounds in the 60s at Pelican Golf Club.
While all of those statistics are encouraging, it means a lot more to Duncan to be finally playing some solid, consistent golf, golf that doesn’t just have her in a good position for next season, but golf that’s given her an opportunity to capture her first LPGA Tour title, something that this time last year wasn’t even close to being on Duncan’s radar.
“I was thinking about this before this tournament started. I played in a bunch of Epson tournaments earlier this year,” said Duncan, who made four Epson Tour starts in 2023. “I was talking to my mom about that. I was just like, I can't believe it's been such a cool turnaround. It's been a lot of work, and finally some belief, so put those two together and that's a good thing.”
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