CROMVOIRT, Netherlands – In Dan Brooks’ mind, Lindy Duncan’s Solheim Cup debut was always going to happen.
“No doubt,” said Brooks, the legendary Duke head coach. “No matter how long it took. Her talent and passion were always going to win out over her inner critic.”
Duncan is one of just four Blue Devils to be named a first-team All-American all four years. She won six times, (tied for sixth in program history), but ranked second in career top-20s (39). Her 72.1 career scoring average is fifth all-time at Duke. When Duncan turned pro, despite being a chronic overthinker, she wasn’t even close to being the only person who believed she’d ascend instantly.
And yet, she finds herself, at age 35, finally competing in her first Solheim Cup this week at Bernardus Golf in the Netherlands, an hour south of Amsterdam.
So, what happened?
“Coming out of college, I think I envisioned my career being less of a roller coaster than it has been,” Duncan said. “And I think my expectations were too high, and that was a lot because of a lack of knowledge, a lack of understanding the jump between college and professional golf; at that time, it was way bigger than I could’ve foreseen.”
To compete with the world’s best, Duncan believed she had to be perfect.
“When I’d watch the best players in the world, I’d feel like they were at this elite level, and the insecurity was, I’m not that,” Duncan added.
After graduating in 2013, Duncan took less than three years to earn her first LPGA card, and she’d basically keep full status for five seasons, never finishing better than 30th in CME points and never worse than 94th. But she ended 2021 at No. 108, and after getting just 10 starts the next year, she finished at No. 115.
At the final stage of Q-Series in December 2022, Duncan was in good position to regain her card when she carded a quadruple-bogey 8 on her 144th hole of the eight-round event to miss out on full status. Her drive went sideways. Her next shot was a cold top.
“I was so shocked that I couldn’t feel my hands or my body,” Duncan described. “It was complete panic. … I don’t remember a lot after that. I remember signing the card and just feeling completely destroyed.”
Driving home with her mother, Debbie, Duncan couldn’t speak. Soon, though, she asked herself, “Am I going to stop playing?”
The answer was no. Not measuring herself by her results and playing with freedom was easier said than done, but Duncan was going to try. With merely conditional status for a second straight year, she got into only three events through June 2023 before qualifying and making the cut at the U.S. Women’s Open and then finishing third at the Dana Open the following week to reactivate her full membership.
A year later, she started working with instructor Sean Foley, who introduced Duncan to the habit of writing down mantras in a notebook. The thought: the more you write something down and read it, the more you feel it and become it.
In an LPGA video feature released earlier this year, Duncan is shown writing down and repeating aloud several mantras, including:
I will live joyfully.
I will not play golf in fear.
I will never quit.
It all came together for Duncan at last year’s Chevron Championship, where she turned a breakthrough swing feeling into her first top-10 finish in 29 major-championship starts (T-2). Duncan embraced the pressure that week at Carlton Woods and sank a 10-footer to get into a three-way playoff, which was later won by Mao Saigo.
Duncan ended up a career-best 28th in points last season, and while she’s currently 74th this year with four missed cuts at majors, she’s been a little better of late with five straight made weekends. No matter, Duncan’s resume was good enough for U.S. captain Angela Stanford to trust her as one of her three captain’s picks, even if many outsiders questioned Duncan’s inclusion over, say, Kiara Romero, the promising former top-ranked amateur who tied for sixth at this summer’s U.S. Women’s Open and joined the pro ranks a few weeks ago.
“I feel like my game has been super close but not quite the results that I was hoping for,” Duncan said at the FM Championship in late August, “but was lucky to get a pick.”
To be fair, the tinkering Duncan is always hard at work on her game, and her grit and putting, two aspects that attracted Stanford to Duncan, have never wavered.
“And if one little thing clicks,” she says, “I feel like I’m never that far away from really good golf.”
Stanford is clearly confident in Duncan, the oldest Solheim rookie since 2000 (Nancy Scranton, 39) who hasn’t played on a team since college and has spent this week asking tons of questions about match play. The American skipper will send Duncan out alongside Andrea Lee in the third foursomes match of the opening session.
“Andrea is very steady ... the best driver of the golf ball on tour,” Stanford said. “To get Lindy out there with her and have some steadiness, that was key. And just their demeanor, they’re pretty even-keeled. ... Lindy matches up with Andrea statistically very well, so we felt like that would be a really good combination.”
If the hope is that Duncan, one of just two rookies on the U.S. squad, can inspire her teammates, she’s already succeeded. The other U.S. first-timer, Auston Kim, calls Duncan the funniest person on the team, but she also was brought to tears watching Duncan’s story of perseverance.
“I just remember crying my eyes out,” Kim said. “I’m getting emotional now just thinking about because she is such a phenomenal human being, and for her to never give up, persevere, and to go through what she went through and always have a smile on her and always have a smile on her face, I think she’s is the most inspirational player on this team, and I get a lot of motivation just being her teammate, and I want to fight so hard for her.”
Duncan has openly shared that she’s been nervous for weeks, but the difference now is those nerves aren’t debilitating.
She’s unafraid and no longer her biggest critic.
“I don’t have to be perfect anymore,” Duncan says. “I just have to be the best that I can be.”