The Nick Dougherty story, part 3: I can live my open dream

Jul 19 2007 by Mike Torpey, Liverpool Echo

NICK Dougherty is the finest golfer to come out of Liverpool in more than 100 years and today sets out on his quest to claim the sport’s most coveted prize, the Claret Jug, and be the first from Merseyside to do so since the great amateur player Harold Hilton triumphed at Hoylake in 1897.

To hear the final part  in a three-part interview with Nick Dougherty, click here

NICK DOUGHERTY is in dreamland.

The 25-year-old from Liverpool is striding purposefully up the 18th fairway alongside the man he considers to be the greatest ever golfer, Tiger Woods.

Minutes later the enormous galleries roar as he holes a streamliner for a birdie to become Open champion, the prize he has coveted since childhood. Then the alarm clock goes off.

We have all pictured a similar scene in our mind’s eye, the difference with Dougherty is that he really does dream it.

Nor are we talking isolated nocturnal visions; this is a regular occurance and Nick believes it’s a precursor to a real life event in the not too distant future.

Dougherty knows he has the game and mindset not only to win lots of tournaments but also the ones that really matter, the majors.

He says: “One of the things I dream about is winning The Open. It’s a recurring dream for me and it’s usually at Birkdale and playing with Tiger Woods.”

That’s the man Dougherty partnered in the third round of last month’s US Open and the Bootle-born professional believes the experience of leading at Oakmont, then playing with Woods, will help him this week at Carnoustie.

“It does give me confidence,” says Nick. “The two Opens have nothing in common other than that there’s a very strong field and the best of the best are going to be there. But it’s a different style of golf on a course I know particularly well. The important thing is I’m playing really well. These are the same guys I beat at Oakmont but I’m playing with home advantage now. We should be better at this than the Americans because we are more used to it.

“So I’m very excited, I’ve got a great opportunity. I have sacrificed the last two events to allow myself to go there feeling a million dollars.

“I want to compete and challenge in the majors. My main goal is to have a chance to become No 1 in the world and that could actually work out quite nicely because by the time I’m getting to that, Tiger will be turning into an old boy.

“Maybe I could be the person to take his crown away, but that’s a ten-year project.”

“My game is now the best it has ever been. It’s definitely good enough to win a major, which is extremely exciting. The practice I have done the last few days with my coach has been top drawer, it’sas good as it has ever been.”

Dougherty was hoping his Open dream would come true last summer at Royal Liverpool, only for him to miss the cut.

“I expected so much that week,” he recalls. “Going into it I felt obliged to do well because it was Liverpool. It was my first Open Championship and I put a huge amount of pressure on myself to play well there because I was a Scouser and because I was one of the in-form players that year, albeit not at that time. It was too much to handle.”

As if the burden of expectation wasn’t enough, the Doughertys were also in the midst of a family crisis, which saw Nick having to make a dash from Hoylake the moment his second round was completed.

“My granddad nearly died on that Friday afternoon,” says Nick. “I came off the course and my brother, who was home from America, said we had to go straight to Fazakerley hospital, me in these pink kecks I had been wearing on the golf course.

“My cousin was a bit broken up in the car and when we got there I broke down as well. It was too much at once. I got such good press going into the Open that I thought it would get me through but I just didn’t have it. It was a bad, bad week.

“I was busting a gut to make the Ryder Cup team too and it wasn’t happening. I was saying to myself that I have to make this team because I should be in it.

“There’s been evidence of that this year. The one event I have finished off well is the US Open. And that’s the only event I have gone to not thinking that I should win.

I really enjoyed the whole week. It was fabulous.”

So the stage is set for another major challenge and everyone surrounding Nick Dougherty has total belief in his ability, including his sponsor Audi cars, who say “as an outstanding young sportsman who consistently pushes boundaries and exceeds expectations, Nick was an obvious choice to become a Vorsprung durch Technik ambassador”.

Adds Nick: “There’s no one in my team or that works with me that doesn’t think I can be the best,” he says.

“I beat everyone in the world on the first day of the US Open. If you can do it for one day, you can do it for one week, if you can do it for one week you can do it for a month, a year, a career.

“I know when I start winning again the floodgates will open because I have come on so much. One glimpse is all you need and that’s enough to build a career on.”

To hear the final part  in a three-part interview with Nick Dougherty, click here