Karinn Dickinson has been a bit distracted of late.

No wonder. Next week the 23-year-old new Bend resident will play in her first tournament as a professional, and it’s a doozy of debut — the U.S. Women’s Open.

So even though she is playing in the Oregon Amateur Championship this week at Eugene Country Club. — where she advanced Thursday to the quarterfinals — her mind might not be entirely on the task at hand.

“I can’t stop thinking about it,” says Dickinson of the U.S. Open, one of five major championships in professional women’s golf.

“The U.S. Open is always in the back of my mind,” she adds. “That’s where I really want to perform. I’m taking this tournament (the Oregon Amateur) as practice and warm-up to see how I do with what I have been working on … under pressure.”

Dickinson travels Sunday to Southampton, N.Y., home of Sebonack Golf Club, which will host the best players in the women’s game June 27-30 in the 68th U.S. Women’s Open.

Few in this area are familiar with Dickinson.

She was born in Washington but grew up in Norway. She returned to her native state to finish high school, but until May of last year she had never set foot in Central Oregon.

Landing in Bend was no fluke, however. Dickinson followed her golf instructor, Joey Pickavance, to Central Oregon when Pickavance left TPC Snoqualmie Ridge in Snoqualmie, Wash., last spring to take over as head pro at Pronghorn Club in Bend.

“He was the best instructor I ever had,” says Dickinson, who speaks with an almost undetectable Norwegian accent. “So I was like, “‘You’re LEAVING?’ … all disappointed.”

Pickavance offered up his family’s home (which he shares with his wife, Stacy, son, Cole, and two other golf prospects) and a part-time job as a caddie at Pronghorn, things he has done before for young prospects he has coached.

What did he see in Dickinson?

“Karinn (pronounced “kah-RIN”) is a good student,” says Pickavance, who will caddie for Dickinson at the U.S. Open. “There is no question in my mind that she will be on tour one day.”

Dickinson could not help but accept her coach’s offers.

“It’s been truly awesome,” she says. “I’m at the course every day either working or practicing, or even both on the same day. And they are GREAT practice facilities.”

The caddie experience has been a unique one for Dickinson.

Few caddies are women. So she has come to recognize the look she sometimes gets from her golfers, glances that seem to question her golf knowledge and cast doubt on her suitability to serve as a caddie.

“Then I tell them my background, and they say, ‘Oh, so you actually do know golf?’” she says. “I tell them, ‘Yeah, I kind of know what I am talking about.’”

Dickinson most definitely knows golf.

Growing up, she was among the best young female players in Norway, winning the country’s junior championship in 2006. And she played her college golf at the University of Washington, winning two collegiate tournaments before graduating in 2011. She also won the 2012 Washington State Women’s Amateur Championship.

Dickinson proved her skill again last month at the U.S. Women’s Open sectional qualifier at Waverley Country Club in Portland, where she shot a 2-over-par 72-74—146 to tie for first place in a field of 48 professionals and amateurs. That earned her one of two berths into the Open awarded at the qualifier.

“She has just continued to progress,” Pickavance says. “She works hard at it.”

Dickinson hopes her tournament successes are just the prologue.

She expects to play in August at the LPGA National Qualifying School and otherwise plans a typical ascent up the ladder to the highest reaches of pro golf.

Her first goal is to make the 36-hole cut at the U.S. Open and perhaps compete for the title. But she knows this week is just a start, albeit one that takes place on the biggest stage in women’s golf.

“I am very excited and I am trying to prepare as well as I can,” says Dickinson, who has taken up mountain biking in Bend and has no immediate plans to leave the area. “I want to enjoy the experience.”