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NAPLES — Naples’ Bernadette Luse, TV reality show contestant? It almost didn’t happen.

The former LPGA Tour golfer at first declined an invitation to The Golf Channel’s reality show “The Big Break X,” which debuts tonight at 10. But a little push from family and boyfriend Patrick Fraley led the 27-year-old to agree when she was contacted a second time.

“It’s a once-in-a-lifetime thing,” Luse said her family and friends told her. “If you don’t do it, you’re going to regret it.”

Haymes Snedeker, the brother of PGA Tour rising star Brandt, called her back the next week, again asking for Luse to join him in the team show.

“He was like, ‘We really need to do this,’ ” Luse said. “So I said yes.”

Luse knew Snedeker from Mississippi — she played on the women’s golf team and he was an assistant coach for the men’s team. The newest edition of The Golf Channel’s show features eight two-person teams with a male and a female, and was shot at Boynes Highlands Resort in Harbor Springs, Mich., in July.

Luse took two weeks off from her job as director of admissions at Cozmo The School, a beauty school in Bonita Springs. Shooting the show, especially adjusting to the cameras and wearing a microphone, was a different experience, to say the least.

“It’s the most unnatural feeling in the world,” Luse said with a laugh, “having cameras in your face and a microphones on your person. It took 12 days to get used to it, and then we had two days left. But it was a lot of fun. I made some great friends. I met some nice people at The Golf Channel. I played some beautiful golf courses. The whole experience was wonderful.”

The Orlando native moved to the area with Fraley, a Barron Collier graduate, a couple of years ago. She met Fraley while he was caddieing for Bonita Springs’ Catherine Cartwright (now Tumbleson) on the LPGA Tour. Luse played on the tour for all of 2005 and part of 2006, making four cuts in 25 tournaments.

Luse saw the opportunity to get back into golf through the show. The winning team’s female competitor earns an exemption to play in the Bell Micro LPGA Classic next year, and the winning male gets a spot in the 2009 Children’s Miracle Network Classic at the Walt Disney World Resort. Entry fees to the LPGA and PGA tour’s qualifying schools are also paid for.

“I was thinking (about getting back into the game) before the show even started,” Luse said. “I’ve been working at the school now for a year and a half. I work for friends, so it’s a lot of fun. But once you’ve gotten the taste of competitive golf on the LPGA Tour and that level, it’s just so hard to get the feeling out of you. I was really missing playing, and missing golf. I was thinking maybe at this point, I need to give it one more shot, while I’m young.”

Luse knew fellow Orlando native Andrea VanderLende, a former Florida Gators golfer, before the show. Amber Prange, who has worked on her game in Fort Myers and won an earlier version of the Big Break, also is on the show.

While Luse knows the outcome, she’s not allowed to reveal it. Tonight, she’ll gather with some friends and watch the premiere. The show will air Tuesdays at 10.

“I can’t believe that it’s actually starting,” Luse said. “Right after I got back, there was so much excitement, and then nobody really said anything after a while, and all of a sudden it’s here.”