Jo D. Duncan

Age: 39
Residence: St. Louis
Hometown: Noel, Mo.
Occupation: Teaching Professional
Marital Status/Children: Single/0
Hobbies: Gardening, playing guitar, housework
Jo D. Duncan Pictures

Home Golf Course: Norwood Hills Country Club, St. Louis, Mo.
Collegiate Golf Experience: Missouri State University, Springfield, Mo.
Strongest Part of Game: Iron play and short game
Favorite Club: 8- and 6-irons

The senior member of The Big Break V contestants, Jo D. nurtured her golf talents – not at the local country club, but at the local 9-hole course where people played in cut-off jeans and tank tops. Her grandmother introduced her to the game, but it took a while before golf surpassed her first love – basketball.

Coming from modest means in small-town Missouri, Jo D. concluded that she would need to earn an athletic scholarship to attend college. Because her small stature would make basketball a long shot, at 15, she started to take golf more seriously. She was the only girl to play high school golf in her entire county and had to play on the boy's team. She actively pitched her talents to colleges willing to listen, and a golf "audition" led to a partial scholarship at Missouri State University (then called Southwest Missouri State). This would be the first time she would ever compete with and against women.

Jo D. took her first formal golf lesson three years removed from college and rebuilt her swing. It was then that she qualified for the USGA's U.S. Women's Amateur Public Links Championship while shooting course records along the way, including a 67 and 69. In 1996, she played the Futures Tour as an amateur and entered the LPGA Tour Qualifying Tournament, where she says she was overwhelmed with the experience and performed poorly; a performance she repeated in 1997.

Currently, Jo D. is a teaching professional and is a member of the Long Drivers of America, having competed for three years in the RE/MAX World Long Drive Championships.

Source: The Golf Channel; used with permission