A degenerative hip condition keeps Daniel Hand’s Matt Doyle in constant pain, but the senior is still one of the state’s best golfers and an inspiration to others
Matt Doyle was 13 years old, playing a junior tournament at Copperhead Golf Course in Florida, home of the PGA Tour’s Valspar Championship. His father, Mike, was his caddie. Mike vividly remembers how much pain his son was in and how proud he was of him, too.
Matt could barely walk as pain shot through his lower half. To some, finishing the tournamen would have seemed impossible, but not for Matt. He finished the round, shooting even par and surviving the challenging Snake Pit — the course’s 16th, 17th and 18th holes. And he did it all on one leg.
After the father-son duo walked off the 18th green, Mike broke down crying.
“I try not to cry too much,” Mike said last week, recalling that day. “It was really inspirational to see him finish those last four holes, going through the Snake Pit hopping on one leg. ... I just couldn’t take it anymore, watching him hobble and really struggle and finish the way that he did. It was awesome to see as his dad and as his caddie.”
Doyle has Legg-Calve-Perthes disease, a degenerative disorder in his left hip. The blood flow to his femoral head (the main joint in a hip) was cut off until he was 12, when it grew in crooked and “mushroomed out,” as he described it. Now it’s just bone-on-bone contact rubbing against each other.
It’s still not uncommon for Doyle, now a senior on the Daniel Hand golf team, to finish a golf tournament using just his right leg to maneuver from hole-to-hole as a throbbing pain shoots through his left hip.
“I’m in constant pain all the time,” he said. “I just kind of deal with it.”
Because of his disease, Doyle has an exemption to ride in a cart in 18-hole tournaments. He can’t run, or walk long distances. He can walk nine holes — or 18 at a flat course like Madison Country Club, the team’s home course — if it is nice out. But if the weather turns, or he has to walk up and down hills, his mobility lessens. When pain does kick in, Doyle employs a different kind of swing he’s developed to cope with the sharp jabs through his lower half.
Doyle is one of the state’s top high school golfers and competes in some of the nation’s top amateur tournaments. He won the Division II state individual title as a sophomore in 2019, shooting a 1-under-par 70 at Stanley Golf Course in New Britain. He found success on the junior circuit, as well, winning the 2020 Connecticut Junior Amateur championship, placing third at the 2020 Notah Begay III Junior Golf National Championship and second at the Junior Orange Bowl International in 2021. He’s committed to play Division I golf at Elon University in North Carolina and is currently 47th in the American Junior Golf Association rankings.
On Monday, he’ll play for a second straight Division II state title at Timberlin Golf Club in Berlin.
“My whole goal is to inspire people,” Doyle said. “I think my story allows me to do it very easily, if I just keep doing what I’m doing and don’t let anything stop me.”
Golf is a lifestyle
Doyle first swung a golf club at 4 and played his first round of 18 holes before his fifth birthday in the Caribbean with his dad. Doyle is ultra-competitive — he’ll turn any event in his house into a competition with his sister or dad — so giving up sports was not an option. He played baseball growing up, but the disorder made most high-impact sports unplayable. He chose to focus exclusively on golf when he turned 12.
“I think I made the right choice,” Doyle said with a wry smile.
His parents set him up with the right coaches, including Suzy Whaley, a Connecticut native, LPGA legend and the first woman to serve as PGA of America president. Just a year after committing to the sport full time, he played in the PGA Junior League Golf National Championship in Scottsdale, Arizona, and began to dominate on the junior circuit, winning five events from 2015-17.
“It’s something he wanted to do,” Mike Doyle said. “It’s the only thing he really could do. We wanted to make sure we provided him with all of the opportunities to be successful.”
It was clear early that Matt Doyle had a knack for golf, but he flipped a switch the summer after his junior year. He won the US Challenge Computer Merchant Cup, the Connecticut Junior Amateur Championship and placed in the top 20 at amateur events hosted by Dustin Johnson, Justin Thomas and Jordan Spieth. He played in the Team TaylorMade Invitational in Florida at the end of May. The field included the top 75 junior golfers in the world. Doyle finished 60th, shooting 74-72-78 over the three-day tournament.
Just being included wasn’t enough for Doyle.
“You have to win on the local level before you can win on the national level,” Doyle said. “Then you’ve got to get your ass kicked. ... I got my ass handed to me. Now I know what I need to work on.”
Doyle understands the value of losing, and understands that struggles often come before success.
But the hurdles Doyle needs to clear in golf are nothing like those he’s already seen in life, Daniel Hand golf coach Jim Holleran said.
“He faces adversity,” Holleran said. “It’s a carryover from his life. He takes adversity as a challenge. He says, ‘OK, you knock me down this time. I’m just going to get back up and get better.’”
Doyle’s best golf trait is his ability to work himself out of trouble.
“I’ve seen him in places ... not good places at all,” Holleran said. “I’ve seen him hook the ball 20 yards around a tree and get onto the green. He’s always in the game. He doesn’t have any quit in him. He can get himself out of trouble.”
Said Doyle: “No matter what situation I’m in, I can always get myself out of it.”
In May, Doyle recorded a double-eagle against Guilford at Madison Country Club on the par-5 fifth hole. He holed out from 177 yards out with a 6 iron. He had an AP macro exam earlier that day and rushed from the school to the course, took two warmup putts and played.
“I probably scored the same on the exam as I did on the hole,” Doyle said with a laugh.
Inspiring the next generation
Doyle’s parents recently showed him a Facebook group for parents of children with Legg-Calve-Perthes disease. Doyle didn’t understand how he could be a role model, but in this group, he has supporters — parents and children who are rooting for him — and see him as an inspiration to those with the disease.
Casey Martin, a former PGA Tour professional with a birth defect in his right leg called Klippel–Trénaunay syndrome, successfully sued the PGA Tour in 2001 for the right to use a cart in tournaments. He was Doyle’s first golf role model. Now the senior from Madison has the same impact on others.
“It’s truly inspirational that they can see that there’s something they can do, and he’s embraced it,” Mike Doyle said. “I think, at first, he didn’t understand how big of a deal that was. Now he loves being that inspiration for other people. ... It makes a parent very proud.”
Playing professionally is Doyle’s long-term goal. He wants to be the first Elon alum to reach the PGA Tour and to put on for his hometown of Madison. His most important goal, though, is to inspire children like him: the children who feel pain when they walk, the ones who think that because of their condition, sports are not an option.
“So many of those kids saw my story, so they started playing golf because of it,” Doyle said. “We get messages all the time about parents who are so proud of me — they don’t even know me, but they’re so proud of me because I got their kid into golf. I could have just quit all sports right there when I was 12. Instead, I chose to play golf, and now I’m fighting through it just to show people that there are always options for them, no matter what disability they have.”
Shawn McFarland can be reached at smcfarland@courant.com.
