By John Erardi
The Cincinnati Enquirer

HAMILTON TOWNSHIP - Ed Dougherty arrived in the area at 2 a.m. Monday from last weekend's tournament in Portland, Ore. He arrived in a NetJet, in which he's an owner along with fellow Champions Tour pros Dana Quigley and Allen Doyle.

TOURNAMENT FACTS

• Where: The TPC at River's Bend, Maineville. • Course: 7,064 yards/par 72. • Gates open: 7 a.m. today through Sunday. • Tickets: $20, each day.

That's a far cry from the used 1973 Ford van Dougherty used to drive between tournaments in the mid-1970s, when he was doing things like driving 32 straight hours home from Houston to get to his day job in Philadelphia.

The jet gets you there a lot more quickly, although there are times such as Monday when you find yourself with no way out of the airport because the gate is locked.

"Somehow, Allen got it open - he's the shady one in the bunch - and we were on our way," Dougherty said. "For a while there, I thought we were going to have to sleep in the car."

Dougherty, 55, did his share of that back in the day but hasn't in awhile. He made $1.3 million on the PGA Tour (1975-97) and has made more than $5 million on the senior circuit.

He's taking aim at the $225,000 first prize here in the Kroger Classic at the TPC at River's Bend, which begins Friday. Today is the second round of the Sara Lee Pro-Am (8 a.m. and 1:30 p.m.)

The military men and women who attend the Heroes Day here Friday - they, along with firefighters and law-enforcement personnel will get in free with the presentation of their official department IDs - need to know something about Dougherty:

He used to be one of you. And he was one of you on one of the most hellish stretches ever, beginning on the night of May 10, 1968 - the Tet Offensive in Vietnam. Dougherty, who had been drafted July 19, 1967, at 19 years old, on the day of what was supposed to be his first golf lesson, was a 20-year-old sergeant. His 196th Light Infantry Brigade had been sent into a special forces camp, Kham Duc, that was overrun by North Vietnamese.

Of the 113 men in Dougherty's unit, 68 men didn't make it out.

"Don't make me out to be a hero," Dougherty said. "The heroes are the ones who didn't come home."

He decided then and there he never again would do anything he didn't want to do.

So when Dougherty was stationed at Fort Lewis in Tacoma, Wash., after his year in Vietnam, he sent for his father's golf clubs.

"Six dollars a month it costs me to play golf, and once I found out where that golf course was, I was the biggest dog in the army," Dougherty said.

After he got out of the Army, he parlayed his golf ability into a job at a country club, which in turn got him a golf job in the Virgin Islands, where he worked for Mike Reynolds, now his swing doctor.

"I heard him hit the ball on the first tee one night at 5 o'clock when I was out there to check the tee times at the starter's desk, and I said, 'Was that you?' " Reynolds recalled. "He said yes and I said, 'Where'd that ball go, over the trap?' And he said yes. And I said, 'Do you want a lesson?' And he said yes. And I said, 'OK, but you can't question what I'm doing, because I'm going to be building your swing.' "

And that was the first lesson Dougherty had since the day he was drafted.

"When you've gone through what Ed went through in Vietnam, there's nothing out there (on the Champions Tour) that you can't handle," Reynolds said.

Said Dougherty: "I'll tell you exactly what I said at a speech a few weeks ago in Baltimore. I'm as lucky a guy as anybody out here. I'm getting to do exactly what I want to do.

"I'm not a deep person, but I never forget the mothers, the fathers, the sisters, the brothers, who lost somebody. I got a chance to live out my dream. Their sons and brothers didn't. I want nothing but respect for them."

Related stories:
Heroes Day honors those who serve
Kroger Classic Schedule, Results