Northwestern men’s golfer Dillon Dougherty played on thebasketball team in high school, but it was a pickup hoops game thatalmost cost him his golf game.
During an early spring game his junior year, he broke threefingers and a bone in his right hand.
But the cast didn’t bother him that much — Dougherty played inhis high school’s spring golf season anyway.
“My golf team wasn’t very good,” said Dougherty, who graduatedfrom Woodland High School in Woodland, Calif. “Even me with a caston helped the team.”
Golfers generally aren’t the most injury-prone athletes, but thebasketball court has been a dangerous place for NU’s players.
Two of the top players on the team spent the ends of their highschool careers in arm casts after breaking their hands inbasketball games.
Dougherty played through his injury by popping a couple ofpainkillers before tournaments and ignoring the confused looks ofopposing players, he said.
“I shot a 73 with a cast on,” Dougherty said. “It was kind offunny. I was playing with one of the best golfers in California,and he beat me by one stroke. It felt pretty good.”
Senior Casey Strunk broke his hand in a basketball game in gymclass at the beginning of his senior year of high school.
He injured his left hand, though, making swinging a golf clubimpossible.
“I was diving to get a ball and I slammed my left wrist into thewall,” said Strunk, who attended Thunderbird High School inPhoenix, Ariz.
He had to sit out the entire fall golf season.
“It took a while to get my strength back,” Strunk said. “It waskind of iffy whether (head coach) Pat (Goss) had a spot for me onthe team. He had nothing to evaluate from me.”
For both athletes, the injuries came at times when they werehoping to impress college coaches.
“All the coaches I talked to before pretty much stopped talkingto me because I didn’t really have results to show them, so I waspretty worried,” Dougherty said.
When his cast came off with two weeks left in the summer, hestarted practicing with senior golfer Tom Johnson, then an incomingfreshman to NU’s program.
Dougherty said he played in two tournaments at the end of thesummer, scored decently and started attracting attention fromcoaches again.
While both Strunk and Dougherty did physical therapy to gettheir hands back to pre-injury strength, each said they experiencelingering pain now and then — especially when it rains.
And Goss always gets a little worried when basketball intramuralseason rolls around, Strunk said.
“Pat keeps us away from doing that now that we’re here,” hesaid. “He’s always nervous about turned ankles.”
Playing golf with a leg cast probably would be tough.
