Cancer survivor, straight shooter, Dahmen finally back on track

NORTON, MASS. » Joel Dahmen has reason to pause every so often to consider how far he’s come.

His favorite moment included Tiger Woods.

They were playing together in the third round of the Quicken Loans National, a Saturday memorable for the heat and the noise. Woods was on a roll, and when he made his fourth straight birdie, the cheers were so loud that Dahmen looked over at his caddie, Geno Bonnalie, and couldn’t stop smiling.

They grew up together on the Washington-Idaho state line. They have been through a lot. This was fun.

“We looked at each other and it was like, ‘Can you believe what we’re doing?”’ Dahmen said. “Two bimbos from Lewiston and Clarkston out here playing with Tiger Woods and we’re competing. It was the coolest thing ever on a golf course. It felt like a culmination of everything.”

Fast forward two months and the 30-yearold Dahmen can be found this week at the TPC Boston for the second stop in the FedEx Cup playoffs. He is No. 76 in the standings, and the top 70 advance to the third event — with another $9 million purse — with the lofty goal of being among the top 30 who make it to the Tour Championship.

This is what he might have expected to be doing all along when he and Kyle Stanley were regarded as the top junior golfers in the Northwest.

And this is what seemed so unimaginable after Dahmen’s life took so many unexpected turns.

His mother died of cancer when he was a junior in high school. His brother was diagnosed with testicular cancer. And then right when Dahmen was starting to get back on track, he was diagnosed with cancer. He had surgery in 2011 to remove a testicle, and chemotherapy followed.

And then there was the maddening sport of golf that nearly drove Dahmen to quit. He sat on his couch for a month, didn’t shower for two weeks and bought a dog to keep him company. He didn’t have a phone for three months because he couldn’t pay the bill.

Facing an ultimatum from his girlfriend — either get a job or go practice — he borrowed $200 from her for a golf lesson, the first step in taking himself seriously.

So when Dahmen says that moment with Woods was a “culmination of everything,” there’s a lot to take in.

His mother dying from pancreatic cancer is what he believes sent him into a spiral. A good student in high school, he spent a year with the Washington Huskies, drinking more, studying less and lasting only one year.