Golf : Hyperactive Thyroid Temporarily Sidelines Bradley

When Pat Bradley’s hands trembled as she stood over a putt, she thought it was just her nerves.

When her heart beat so fast that she glanced around to see if anyone had noticed, she thought it was just job pressure.

But when Bradley kneeled to study a green and then couldn’t get back up, she knew something really was wrong with her.

Three weeks ago, Bradley saw a doctor in Dallas, and he made a quick diagnosis: a hyperactive thyroid. Dr. Ronald Garvey put her on medication, took her off the Ladies Professional Golf Assn. tour and probably saved her life.

“Potentially, it’s fatal,” said Garvey, a general surgeon at the University of Texas Southwest Medical Center in Dallas.

Bradley, 37, is taking about six weeks off, then hopes to return to the LPGA tour and play as well as she did in 1986, the year she won three of the four majors and $492,021.

After a poor showing in 1987 and a worse start in 1988, Bradley is actually relieved to know that what happened to her game sprung from deterioration of her health, not her mind.

“Anything is going to be better than what I was dealing with,” she said. “I was doubting myself. I thought I was done. I thought I was through. I thought the guys in the white coats were right behind me and I was looking over my shoulder the whole time.”

The “whole time” was just more than a year. Bradley fell to $140,132 in winnings in 1987, when she began noticing the shaking, fatigue, shortness of breath and rapid heartbeat.

“I thought I was just trying to match that level and that greatness and that brought mental pressure which turned physical,” Bradley said. “I thought it was pressure I had to deal with after the year I had in 1986. My hands were trembling. I thought that it was me. I thought it was my fault.”

And before Bradley learned about the hyperactive thyroid, the same thing that Ben Crenshaw battled back from in 1986, she grew worse.

“Standing over putts, I was just trembling,” she said. “Many times I had a hard time catching my breath. My heart was pounding so fast, I thought people could see it. My heart was coming out of my shirt, I thought. The hole just got deeper and deeper. I had a hard time getting out of it.”

She missed the cut five times in the eight tournaments she entered this year. Her best finish was a tie for 11th. She finished 74th at the Nabisco Dinah Shore and 73rd at San Diego. She had won $5,748.

After missing the cut at Rancho Park, Bradley was examined by Garvey. After doing a blood test, he advised Bradley to withdraw from the next week’s tournament in St. Petersburg, Fla., which she did.

“I don’t know how she’s been playing golf,” Garvey said. “I don’t know how she could hold her putter.”

Bradley began taking medication right away, including a dose of radioactive Iodine. Garvey said he expects her to make a full recovery, just as Crenshaw did.

“If she gets the same kind of results, it wouldn’t be too bad, would it?” he asked. Crenshaw struggled through the 1985 season, winning only $25,814, then got the medical help he needed. He won $388,169 in 1986, then last season cashed checks worth $638,194, third-high on the PGA Tour.

Bradley said she has talked with Crenshaw about thyroid problems and that he told her to be patient, to take her time in recovering.

When she resumes playing, again, she will still be taking five pills a day to regulate her heartbeat. After that, Bradley said, her medication will be one pill a day for the rest of her life.

“I’ll tell you, though, the biggest emotion I’ve felt in the last three weeks is peace of mind,” she said. “I found out it wasn’t totally me. It was something else causing it, something physical. Now, I’m so glad it’s been caught, because I went through hell.”

The Soviet Union is building what may be its first golf course.

Tass, the Soviet news agency, reported that the official introduction of the bourgeois pastime to the communist state will take place on a 9-hole course, a joint venture with Sweden, named for Tumba Uhansson, a Swedish hockey player in the 1950s.

The course is near the mouth of the Setun River not far from the Swedish Embassy in Moscow, according to Tass. It also said that Pele, Bjorn Borg, Arnold Palmer and Sean Connery have agreed to be honorary members of the club.

The first hole is supposed to be finished by autumn. U.S. Embassy staffers and other foreigners working in Moscow reportedly will have access to the Soviet links.

Although the course is the first the Soviets have admitted to, however, they might have had another, about 30 years ago.

A secret golf course had reportedly been prepared for President Eisenhower in the late 1950s for his use during a planned summit meeting, but the meeting never took place.

The venture with the Swedes got the full glasnost treatment, however, and the kind of planning that goes into most Soviet sports undertakings.

“A special golf school will be opened for Moscow children . . . and a Russian-language teaching book will be published,” Tass said.

The future?

Tass said that the construction of Tumba Uhansson means that “in 10 years, Soviet golf will produce world-class players.”

Name to remember: Johnny Miller Jr., son of veteran professional golfer Johnny Miller, has signed a national letter of intent to play golf at Arizona State.

The David L. Baker Memorial Golf Course, the first new public course built in Orange County in 10 years, opened Saturday.

Orange County provided the 63 acres of public land within Mile Square Regional Park required for the lighted, 3,900-yard, par-62, 18-hole layout. American Golf Corp. designed and built the course at a cost of $3.5 million.

Baker was a member of the board of supervisors from Orange County’s second district and was instrumental in the county’s acquisition of Mile Square Park from the federal government in 1973.

When Earl L. Webb Jr., was killed in the PSA air tragedy in December, he left a wife and two children, ages 4 and 2.

Webb was a member of the Oil Masters Golf Club, which is sponsoring the first Earl L. Webb Jr. Memorial golf tournament June 12 at Montebello golf course. Proceeds will be turned over to Webb’s trust fund. Entry fees for the tournament are $75. For more information, contact Dan Woo at (714) 969-3231.

For the fifth consecutive year, Harvey Korman and McLean Stevenson will host the Jaime Beth Slavin Celebrity golf tournament, which will be played June 6 at El Caballero Country Club in Tarzana.

The tournament has raised more than $100,000 for the Reyes Syndrome Foundation. Slavin died of the disease at 16.

Some of those scheduled to play are Jack Lemmon, Robert Stack, Hal Linden, Donald O’Connor, Mike Connors, Johnny Mann, Don Porter, Tommy Newsom and Fred De Cordova. Call Sandy Rake at (818) 996-7526 for ticket information.

Golf Notes

The third Chaminade High School alumni golf tournament, a fund-raiser for scholarship funds, will be played Monday at Woodland Hills Country Club. . . . The seventh AT&T; March of Dimes Celebrity golf tournament, hosted by former San Diego Chargers quarterback Dan Fouts, will be played Monday at Fairbanks Ranch Country Club. The tournament features members of the National Football League Players Assn.

The NutraSweet Tournament, which features celebrities playing golf and tennis and benefits diabetes research, will be played Monday at Riviera. . . . The fifth Baby Golf Tournament, which aids critically ill babies at Cedars-Sinai’s Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, is to be played May 21 at the Sheraton-Industry Hills Resort in the City of Industry. The event is sponsored by Good Beginnings, a Cedars-Sinai support group that provides assistance to ill newborns and their families.

The Golf University at San Diego has added Nathaniel Crosby, former national amateur champion, to its advisory board. . . . The Spalding-College of the Desert invitational pro-am will be played next Thursday and Friday at Mission Hills. Proceeds from the event will benefit the Institute of Golf Management at College of the Desert, which offers degree programs for students studying careers in golf course management.

Cal State Fullerton signed Todd Fischer of Santa Ana Foothill High School and Richard Laing of Bonner Springs, Kan., to golf scholarships. . . . Vista Valencia Country Club in Valencia will hold a qualifying event at 10 a.m. Saturday for the Michelin national long driving tournament. Proceeds will benefit the PGA of America’s Junior Golf Foundation. . . . The Hal Linden March of Dimes Celebrity Golf tournament will be played June 10-12 at Edgewood Tahoe.