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The new mature Nick Dougherty believes his US Open appearance highlights his improvement his year.

With Tiger Woods winning his first major at 21 and Seve Ballesteros doing it at 22 perhaps we ought not to get too excited about a British player just qualifying for his first major at 23.

But Nick Dougherty's appearance in this week's US Open does at least put him another step up a ladder he still hopes can take him all the way to the top.Now in the fourth full season of his professional career the Liverpool golfer had wanted to reach this stage a long time ago.But, as he has learnt the hard way - things do not always go to plan.

It was only last September that Dougherty's place on the European tour was in jeopardy and if he had been forced into a return to the qualifying school he could have prepared himself for a barrage of stories about talent being wasted.

But he saved himself from that, then  in January held off Colin Montgomerie for his first tour title and now, thanks to a second-round 66 in the US Open qualifier at Walton Heath last Monday, is at Pinehurst lapping up the atmosphere.

Dougherty first came to prominence in the junior series launched by Nick Faldo and with the former world number one taking him under his wing he not surprisingly soon became known as "Little Nick."Selected for the 2001 Walker Cup at the age of 19 he was chosen as the partner for star man Luke Donald and they helped Britain and Ireland to only their second victory in America and their first-ever successful defence of the trophy.

He turned professional straight afterwards, was third at the qualifying school and became Rookie of the Year.All was going well - he was a 20-year-old with  earnings for the season of £365,000 and enjoying it to the full.Perhaps too much, though.

While Donald went from strength to strength in America Dougherty, with equally high ambitions, lost his way a bit.

"The game I had just didn't cut it and neither did my work ethic.

"I was living the life of Riley and I became so depressed," he said."All of a sudden I had money and I liked it far too much. I wouldn't say golf was in second place, but it was not ahead of everything else."

"I slackened off for a couple of years. A load of people said stuff and it almost drove me to do the opposite. I don't know whether it was stubbornness, but I like making my own choices."

Dougherty then went down with glandular fever. "It's brought on my stress and I don't deserve any pity for getting it. I brought it on myself"."My friends away from golf are different - the weekend comes and it's party time. If there's something going on I don't like to miss out. But it was a bad mistake."

"Relationships suffered, but it was a kick up the backside. I didn't appreciate how much time I was wasting."

Eventually, though, that appreciation hit home. "Golf had never made me cry before, but it did a couple of times this year," he said at the end of last season.

Now, with his career back on track, he says: "It's about getting a balance. I'm a young lad, not a monk, and I enjoy being able to out with my mates, but I get my real satisfaction when I'm here (on tour) from working hard and getting results."

"I put a lot of time and effort into my career and it would just be silly really to throw it away because I want to go out and have a couple of beers. "That's the way I think now and it is so much sweeter. I'm in a pretty good position with a great opportunity in life to succeed in a sport I love playing."

"Once I started enjoying my golf again is when things turned around because I took all the pressure off myself."

"I had it in my head I could not fail, you cannot make mistakes in this game, you have to win and you have to be the best. That's not the best way to go about it - to heap that much pressure. It's enough pressure without beating yourself
up."

The bad times made Dougherty go back to basics and with the help of "mind magician" Jamil Quereshi he turned the corner.

He once said: "I don't just want to be a good European Tour player. I want to win in America, play in the Ryder Cup, win majors."

There is no need yet for him to abandon those lofty goals, but it is one step at a time and the next step comes now. And perhaps it is fitting that at the first US Open Faldo has missed since he became a major winner in 1987 Dougherty
makes his debut.