John Daly claims he just might pack his bags for Chicago and play in the Motorola-Western Open next month after all.
Then again, consider the source.
“You know me,” he said. “I really can’t look that far ahead. I have to take it one day at a time.”
On Thursday, Daly shot a patient 71 in the first round of the U.S. Open. He’s only five swings behind leader Nick Price, not an uncomfortable position considering Daly’s previous misadventures at Shinnecock Hills Golf Club.
“At the Open here in 1986, I was an amateur and I started with 88,” Daly said. “I don’t remember much about that. There’s a lot of things I don’t remember about a lot of things. Win or lose, I was never far from my friend. Booze.”
As Daly stood there, backed up against the locker-room wall with happy hour fast approaching, he freely admitted he would love a cold beer.
“But I can’t,” he said. “You know how it goes with alcoholics. One’s too many and ten’s not enough.”
Daly hasn’t had a drink since December 21, 1992. He remembers that. He was sitting at the Hooters restaurant back home in Little Rock, watching the Dallas Cowboys on Monday Night Football. He knocked down maybe eight or nine beers. Then, just before Christmas, he entered a clinic to kill his habit before it killed him.
“The hardest thing I’ve ever had to do, and also the best,” Daly said. “The first year was really tough. My body was in shock. Even now, I’m still adjusting. Chilly weather where I used to play in just shirt sleeves, now I’m sober and I get cold. Now, I feel little hurts where I used to feel no pain.”
Daly met his friend, the bottle, when he was 8, but at least he could get drunk in relative privacy until 1991. That’s when he replaced Price at the PGA Championship and won. Golf was hungry for a new star, and Daly quenched his thirst at all hours. Regardless of tee times, his curfew was last call.
“If I was up or down, I drank,” Daly said. “Now, even if I shoot 85, I won’t deal with it by drinking. I can’t.”
More Top Picks Canon Pixma Pro 100
Daly is far from polished now at age 29, but at least he doesn’t glow in the dark. As recently as August, his temper flared and he became involved in a parking lot tiff during the World Series of Golf. He “voluntarily” took off the rest of 1994, a bookend hiatus. He started the season on suspension, too, for bailing out of a pro-am event at the end of 1993.
“There’s some situations I could have handled better,” Daly admitted. “But I can’t treat stress and pressure the way I used to, by drinking them away. I look at Mickey Mantle. What’s happened to him. It’s day to day for us. What I want now is to play and not hurt the image of the PGA Tour.”
There was a time when Deane Beman, the previous commissioner, and Daly tangled like clockwork. Now, Daly praises Beman for caring about him and his hangovers. Daly also has kind words for Tim Finchem, Beman’s successor, and for several fellow golfers, notably Fuzzy Zoeller.
Daly knows, too, that he’s annoyed many peers. He’s probably got more friends in the gallery than in the clubhouse. Fans pay to see him knock the ball nine miles, but they don’t have to live with his moods and quirks. Only Wednesday, during a practice round, Daly hit a drive 325 yards into the group ahead. Tom Lehman, a solid citizen, picked up the ball, wrote on it and left it on a tee.
“I am mellowing, though,” Daly said. “On and off the course.”
His third wife recently gave birth to his second child. He goes home now to family and guitar. If he heads out, it’s to a movie instead of a bar.
“Vietnam veteran sent me his Purple Heart,” Daly said. “He wrote that he quit drinking when I quit drinking. Awesome. I’ve had a lot of support. Being sober, I’m safer. And the world is safer, too.”
At least for another day.