| Nick Dougherty playing for mum's memory |
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The Liverpudlian, who played most of his junior golf at Shaw Hill Golf Club, near Chorley, admitted he is still so upset over his mother’s death shortly after the Masters in April, that he is only playing at Royal Birkdale Golf Club this week because of her. Ennis travelled all over the Continent following her son as an amateur golfer and for the past six years as a European Tour pro and it was her dying wish he should be on the plane to Valhalla in September. Making his Ryder Cup debut in Kentucky would be just as inspiring for the former World Junior Boys Golf Champion because Nick Faldo is of course the captain of the 2008 European team. It was the six-time golf Majors winner who took the teenage Dougherty under his wing through the Faldo Junior Series, which the Lancashire lad became the first triple winner of in 2000, ironically claiming the Harold Riley Trophy the other side of the Mersey, at Hoylake Golf Club. Nick Dougherty, who kept to his playing schedule after his 61-year-old mother died following a heart attack in Florida the week after watching him make his Masters debut at August, was trying to put a brave face on his feelings this week. The winner of the Dunhill Links Championship back in October said: “If I thought I couldn’t make the Ryder Cup I wouldn’t be playing at the moment, including this. “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.” The 2002 PGA European Tour Rookie of the Year added: “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.” |
NICK DOUGHERTY will be hoping to pull off one of the most emotional performances the Open Championship has ever seen when he tees it up on his native Merseyside this week.
