In 2007 he was the PGA Tour”s 188th-leading money winner. He entered 24 tournaments, made just nine cuts and had winnings of $248,501. The year before he made just $192,134. Because he has been outside the top 125 money winners for three seasons and because he hasn”t won on tour since 2004, he lacks exempt status into events. He has to rely upon the kindness of sponsors to give him one of the four available spaces in weekly PGA Tour events.
However, he is the best-known golfer working outside of golf”s center stage. He has had books written about him and he himself has authored books about his erratic lifestyle. He has two major titles to his name, the PGA Championship and the British Open, which is one more major than Jim Furyk, Freddie Couples and Davis Love III. He ushered in the long ball knocker era with his mantra to simply “grip it and rip it.” He is wildly popular with golf”s Joe Sixpack crowd. He claims to have lost tens of millions because of a gambling problem. He has been in and out of rehab for alcoholism. I can count at least four marriages and just as many divorces.
Even though golf is a merit sport, he continues to play on the world”s best tour because of his ability to sell tickets and bring in the fans. He appears to have allowed his career to reach new depths. And once again he has made front-page news in the sports section for something other than his golfing skills.
Sad to say, but once again I”m talking about Long John Daly. Daly, who would have been a whole lot more comfortable playing professional golf some 80 years ago with Sir Walter Hagen, Crazy Ky Lafoon and Wild Bill Mehlhorn, received an invitation to play in this week”s Arnold Palmer Invitational at Bay Hill. He was removed from the field on Wednesday prior to the start of the 72-hole stroke play event Thursday.
The day before the start of a PGA Tour event is a Pro-Am day. Captains of industry and famous celebrities pony up entry fees often topping $10,000 to play in a foursome of amateurs alongside one of the name members of the field. A Wednesday Pro-Am can easily generate between $2 million and $3 million for the tournament”s coffers, a tidy sum when you consider that most purses are in the $5 million range and most tour events are also trying to raise money for local charities. Of course, a Pro-Am partner such as Michael Jordan or Charles Barkley also can enhance the gate. And remember that big-money amateurs aren”t interested in playing alongside Robert Damron, Jay Delsing or Dicky Pride. They want the chance to draw Tiger or Phil or Vijay or even John Daly.
Daly was disqualified from Palmer”s tournament for failing to make his tee time this past Wednesday. It is a tour rule that you have to play in the Pro-Am. The PGA Tour has a squeaky-clean image to uphold and it expects its members to be reliable as well as gracious and friendly to the amateurs as well as the spectators. Sad to say, but the word reliable has seldom been used in the same sentence when describing John Daly.
Earlier this week Daly also made headlines. His golf instructor, Butch Harmon, announced that he was dropping Daly as a client. Harmon”s announcement was different to say the least in that normally top-flight golfers fire the instructor, not the other way around. Nonetheless, Harmon, who has worked with Tiger Woods and Greg Norman in the past and currently is the swing coach for Phil Mickelson and Adam Scott, decided to sever his working relationship with Daly.
Harmon made the comment that he was no longer interested in wasting his time with Daly. Harmon contended that Daly was more interested in drinking than he was in working on his game. Earlier this year, Daly was playing in the Bob Hope Classic in Palm Desert. He attended two Friday night tournament parties at the Hope, something no professional golfer would ever think of doing. He also went to an after-party gathering where he sang an impromptu set with rocker Alice Cooper. He missed his tee time at the Hope the following day and withdrew from the event claiming he had a rib injury.
Last week Daly also received a sponsor”s exemption into the PODS Championship. On Thursday, the tournament was delayed for 2 ? hours because of an afternoon Florida rainstorm. During rain delays, most pros gravitate to the locker room. Daly instead went to the Hooters “Owl”s Nest,” a corporate tent behind the 17th green. When he emerged at the conclusion of the delay, he had replaced his caddie with Tampa Bay football coach John Gruden. Gruden is a very good ball coach but he doesn”t have any sort of reputation as a looper on the PGA Tour.
Daly shot 77-80 to miss the cut at the PODS and scheduled time to work with Harmon over the weekend. However, when the weekend rolled around, Daly had blown off the Harmon sessions and returned to the Owl”s Nest for the day. Daly was observed drinking beer and signing women”s clothing. He was described by some of those present as the life of the party.
When Daly was forcibly withdrawn from this week”s Palmer, it marked the 13th time in a two-year period wherein he has entered a PGA Tour event that he failed to finish because of circumstances other than high scores. Daly also has made rumblings about suing the tournament director of the Honda Classic. Daly contends he hurt his ribs at last year”s Honda when he tried to stop his swing in reaction to a clicking camera. As a side note, he was in the field of the Honda on a sponsor”s exemption.
PGA Tour veteran John Daly is on the verge of destroying his once successful professional golfing career. Gambling, drinking, excessive behavior and unreliability are the major culprits. Sad to say, one of the songs Daly sang alongside Alice Cooper at the Hope was the Bob Dylan classic, “Knock, Knock Knockin” on Heaven”s Door.” Hopefully it wasn”t a portent of things to come.
