Nick Dougherty plays on through pain of family's grief

Jul 15 2008 by Mark Garrod, Liverpool Daily Post

NICK DOUGHERTY has been through such a rough spell following the loss of his mother that only her dying wish is stopping him from pulling out of this week’s Open Championship.

“If I thought I couldn’t make the Ryder Cup I wouldn’t be playing at the moment, including this,” said the 26-year-old, sure of a big following at Royal Birkdale close to his home city Liverpool.

“My head’s not where it needs to be and my golf game’s not where it needs to be. But I know it can still change and that’s why I’m still playing.”

Ennis Dougherty died aged 61 in late April after suffering a heart attack and although her son has managed a 10th and a fourth place finish since then he has dropped to 12th in the Ryder Cup standings by missing three of his last four cuts.

One good performance is all it will take to put him back in an automatic top 10 qualifying spot, but positive thinking like that is not easy at present.

“It’s a long shot now,” he added at the very time Graeme McDowell was winning the Scottish Open to move up from 10th to sixth in the standings and so make Dougherty’s task that bit harder.

Nevertheless, he will press on because he knows that his mother – “a huge influence on my career and life” he said after she passed away – wanted him to do all he could to try to earn a debut in September.

He added: “It’s going to be lovely to have the support this week, but it’s hard as well because I want to play well and part of me – the real me – is not really here.

“I’m desperate to find it and hopefully The Open will give me some inspiration.

“At least I was better mentally at Loch Lomond last week. Awful putting was why I missed the cut there.

“I was really bad at the European Open. If your head is bad your golf almost inevitably will be bad and it was quite a scary feeling.

“I couldn’t wait to get off the course. I’m not used to feeling like that, but I went up to see my mum’s grave and decided to change a few things.

“I’m concentrating now on trying to do things for her because trying to do them for me is not working at the moment. It doesn’t mean enough to me – there are more important things on my mind. When I try and do it for my mum, I think about what she thinks. If I lose my temper I know she’d be angry and disappointed in me.

“It’s a quick fix, but whatever happens with this Ryder Cup thing I can go back and deal with it afterwards. Unfortunately with my profession I haven’t got time at the moment.”

Dougherty has previously revealed how he has had discussions with a bereavement counsellor and that the advice was to take a break from golf to allow time to grieve. But that is proving hard to do.