OSU’s Johnson doesn’t let Graves’ disease get in the way of his golf game

By Cliff Kirkpatrick
Gazette-Times Reporter

It took friends and family noticing something was going on with Vincent Johnson before he considered there was a problem.

The junior golfer for Oregon State would line up to putt and not study the green. His slow, meticulous self was gone.

Johnson would speed-walk the course even though he felt tired.

At one point he went to a gym to workout with his mother, and he quickly wore out on the treadmill before her. Johnson felt chest pain like he was going to have a heart attack.

He couldn’t ignore the situation anymore. Johnson went to the doctor, and when the results came back it was a relief with all the possibilities.

It was Graves’ disease.

“As much as it sucked, it was a relief because I thought I was losing it,” Johnson said. “At least it was something I could point to that there was a problem. It was then just a matter of how we dealt with it.”

Graves’ disease is the most common form of hyperthyroidism, according to the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services. It occurs when your immune system mistakenly attacks the thyroid gland and causes it to overproduce the hormone thyroxine.

When there is too much of this hormone in your system, the body’s metabolism rate can increase by 60-100 percent. This leads to problems such as irregular heartbeat and anxiety.

“You could tell something was wrong, but you didn’t know what,” OSU golf coach Brian Watts said. “He would be gasping for air when he talked. He was just skinny and weak. Before the diagnoses, he was struggling with it. He kept to himself.”

It’s rarely life-threatening, but there’s no way to stop the condition. It can be regulated with medication. Left untreated and it could lead to heart problems.

Johnson was coming off a strong sophomore season with the Beavers last spring. He averaged a team-best 73.88 strokes per round, and was an Arthur Ashe Jr. Scholar Athlete.

All was going well as he entered the summer amateur circuit when the symptoms began with muscle fatigue in July. Johnson is a power golfer, but his drives were not going for the same distance.

His focus left him. Decisions on what club and what kinds of swings to use were wrong. His academics slumped. He described it as having attention deficit disorder.

“The doctor didn’t know what to make of it then,” Johnson said. “One of the reasons it was difficult to diagnose is it’s not seen much. It was hard to deal with (until it was). I kept saying I still have it. Then I got to the point of accepting hitting it shorter, but it was a tough thing to overcome. To suddenly change your style on the fly was difficult.”

Graves’ disease usually comes on later in life, and seen more in women. It’s uncommon, affecting about five in every 10,000 people in the United States.

The cause comes from varying factors, including heredity, the makeup of the immune system, age, sex hormones and stress, and the fallout from surgery, according to the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services.

Surgery is his best guess for triggering the disease. He had a knee surgery the winter before he noticed the problem.

At the time, Johnson thought it was just the extreme heat that summer and being dehydrated. Johnson spent his days on the course and in the sun. He thought his sluggishness would pass.

“Everything speeds up,” Johnson said. “It was funny, I sped up. My swing is still affected, but it’s better now. Everything was fast. I was a slow player and this fall I was playing speed golf. Your internal clock speeds up. It’s amazing how much it affects you that you don’t notice until someone points it out.”

His lean, 160-pound frame started to wither. Johnson dropped to 140 pounds, seven pounds lighter than when he arrived at OSU out of David Douglas High in Portland.

“If I wasn’t an athlete and a golfer, I wouldn’t have noticed it nearly as fast,” Johnson said. “My performance on the golf course went down significantly. That’s the big indicator.”

A radioactive iodine uptake was done to discover the disease in September. He swallowed an iodine pill and a doctor measured the amount of iodine in his thyroid to determine the problem.

Johnson has been on medication to regulate his thyroid since. He spent the fall season practicing, trying to regain his form. He competed in only one tournament because he wasn’t ready to return.

“It took a while to get back,” Johnson said. “I feel better now. I haven’t had any setbacks since September. I’m playing really well. Since I lost so much distance, I started to overswing. I see a swing coach now and everything is starting to come around, and this is as solid and consistent I’ve been in college. Once I started getting better, I realized how sick I was.”

Johnson is coming off a victory last weekend at the PGA Minority Collegiate Golf Championship, and is second on the team with a 72.86-stroke average this season.

His resurgence this spring helped the Beavers earn an NCAA regional berth this weekend for the first time in since 2003.

“He’s a better person because of it,” Watts said. “You don’t want to go through something like that, but he’s more resilient.”

Johnson feels like himself again. He will have to monitor his medication dosage the rest of his life, but that’s a minor inconvenience.

Johnson is refocused on school and golf. He is on track to graduate next spring with a business degree, and plans to try the PGA pro circuit.

“Everyone talks about perspective when they have something to overcome,” Johnson said. “It was good to feel good on the golf course again. I feel strong and am capable of competing.

“I didn’t give up. I proved a lot to myself because I saw nothing but negative results on the scoreboard. To stick with it, even when I found out I had a problem, I could still go out and play well. I showed to myself if I get tossed a sour apple, I’m still willing to put up with it and make the best of it.”