He Plays – and Lives –Like a Champion
James Douris is known to USGTF members as a fourtime champion of the United States Golf Teachers Cup and the 2011 World Golf Teachers Cup titlist, but his life involves more than merely winning golf tournaments.
Douris also won a much more important battle – a battle with cancer.
In March of 2012, Douris was set to compete at the Port City Open in Bainbridge, Georgia, when he awoke the morning of the first round with a swollen neck. Douris had been plagued by this problem for several weeks prior, and both times he went to see a doctor he was told it was an infection and was given antibiotics. Douris was rooming during the tournament with USGTF national course director Mark Harman, and Harman took Douris to another doctor in Tallahassee, Florida, where they had been staying.
After a two-hour examination, Douris was informed he did not have an infection but instead had lymphoma cancer…at the age of 31. The next day, Douris was on a plane back to his native Australia to seek full medical care.
A round of chemotherapy didn’t entirely clear the cancer from his body, so Douris underwent a second round along with a bone marrow transplant. Thankfully, the second round of treatment worked, and Douris is cancer-free as of this writing.
Douris earned his USGTF certification in 2005, shooting a 65 during the playing ability test. He entered the US Golf Teachers Cup that year in San Antonio, and although he did not win, it was a precursor for things to come. He won the title in 2006, 2007, 2009, and 2011. In January 2012, Douris competed along with several other USGTF members in a pro-am in Tobago. The competition included such former PGA Tour players such as Dave Rummells, Jim Thorpe, Jim Chancey, and Dick Mast. Current star player Patrick Reed also competed and wound up winning the four-round event, but Douris scored lower than Reed over the final three rounds. Thorpe was on record as saying Douris’s game “had no weaknesses,” and he was ready to take his game to the next level. Except, life intervened with the cancer scare…and a double
whammy.
First, while he was in the hospital, Douris lost his father to cancer. Just a week later, his beloved mother told him she had been stricken with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis – ALS, or Lou Gehrig’s disease, and had one year to live.
“It’s one of the worst diseases imaginable,” said Douris. “My nightmare had come true. She became completely paralyzed over the nine-month period as I watched, and had lost all hope for happiness. When she passed away, I was alone and never wanting to play golf again.”
Can you imagine? Not only are you in a fight for your own life, the two people closest to you also had battles with their own diseases and lost. No one could blame Douris if he were to become unraveled, but that’s not what happened.
“I began teaching golf again just to pay the bills, but it was during this time I began to heal and I began lifting weights and saw my body begin to repair itself,” said Douris. “I started coaching some junior golfers in my hometown who switched my mind off the suffering that I saw watching mum and dad die horrible deaths.”
Douris no longer holds aspirations to play full-time professionally, but he did enter the PGA Tour of Australasia’s Q-school in late 2014. After an 8th-place finish in the first stage of qualifying, he managed a 63rd-place in the final stage to earn a conditional card. “I was very happy with my result after contemplating whether or not to ever compete again,” he remarked.
He also gets great satisfaction out of teaching the game.
“I get the most enjoyment seeing people’s faces when they hit shots they never thought they could hit, ” said Douris.
Douris is also a member of the WGTF Top 100 Teachers worldwide, and writes instruction articles for USGTF members. His teaching acumen impressed USGTF national coordinator Bob Wyatt.
“What I like about him is he has a real high level of enthusiasm when he’s teaching, and he can demonstrate as well as anyone alive,” commented Wyatt. “He’s just a pleasure to be around.”
In regards to playing, Douris said, “Now with a PGA card in my possession, I am still apprehensive to compete, but I will attempt to play some tournaments in the coming months.” That includes the upcoming US and World Golf Teachers Cups this fall in Orlando, Florida, at Walt Disney World.
“I have no intention of pursuing the PGA Tour any longer,” he continued, “but I have no doubt that some of my students will have long, successful careers in the game, in which it will give them the ability to help those in need. I look forward to coming to this year’s World Cup to compete and to see all my friends from the USGTF whom I have missed so much over these past three years. I am truly lucky to be alive, and appreciate each day.”
