Ernie Doherty; spent life playing, teaching golf

Ernie Doherty, taking a swing for the Jimmy Fund charity, which helps children with cancer.

As a boy, Ernie Doherty and his eight brothers toted golf bags around Woburn Country Club as a way to help their family through the Depression.

He learned his swing during those days and won his first amateur state championships in 1936 at age 15, beginning a long love affair with golfing culture.

Mr. Doherty, who was head pro at several clubs during his life and owned Cape Cod Country Club from 1978 to 1985, died Sunday at his home at Sunrise Senior Living in Burlington. He was 87 and had suffered from Alzheimer's disease. He died six months after his wife, Charlotte (Moran). The golfing couple were married for 55 years and won several pro-am titles together.

"He was Mr. Personality," said Chuck Holmes, golf director at Cape Cod Country Club. "He loved talking to people. He couldn't stop talking. He'd always tell people, 'Just swing through it.' "

Mr. Doherty dressed well on the links. "He had to look like he wanted to be at the golf course," Holmes said. "He loved bright colors, and everything was coordinated. He was very meticulous about that."

Mr. Doherty was born in Woburn to Irish immigrants William and Nora Doherty.

He and his brothers became known as "The Golfing Dohertys."

"All but one had low single-digit handicaps," said nephew Richard Connolly of Concord, whose mother, Ruth, was Mr. Doherty's only sister.

Mr. Doherty won the Massachusetts Golf Association's Amateur Championship in 1953 at Salem Country Club after losing the previous year by one stroke. In 1952, he was named New England Amateur medalist.

Connolly said Mr. Doherty had a reputation as a generous man who loved being around golfers long after he quit playing.

"He was a great storyteller. He loved to be in that environment," Connolly said.

Mr. Doherty and six of his brothers served in World War II.

After the war, he won the CYO golf championship four years straight, from 1946 to 1949. In 1947, he qualified for the US Amateur Championship and played at Pebble Beach Golf Links in California.

Among the notable matches of Mr. Doherty's life, he beat 1946 amateur champion Ted Bishop on his home course in Norfolk, ending Bishop's 28-match winning streak, his family said.

In 1952, he beat PGA Hall of Famer Julius Boros in semifinal match play at the New England Amateur Championship. In 1954, he finished second to Don Hoenig at the Massachusetts Open.

Mr. Doherty was the head golf pro at several country clubs from the 1950s to the 1970s, including Woburn Country Club Bradford Country Club in Haverhill, and Framingham Country Club.

By 1978, he and Jack Gilgun, a former mayor of Woburn, purchased Cape Cod Country Club in Falmouth, where Mr. Doherty worked as head pro.

The men sold the club in 1985, but Mr. Doherty kept working at the club until he became ill around 2000.

"He was a self-made person," Holmes said. "He was a talented golfer, and he just worked hard to get where he got."

Mr. Doherty leaves brothers Jack and Gene of Woburn.

A funeral Mass will be said at 10 a.m. tomorrow in St. Charles Church in Woburn. Burial will follow in Wildwood Cemetery in Winchester.