There are no gimmes for John Daly anymore. Every shot demands his undivided attention, and so does every hour.
But at least for now he deals with problems instead of drowns them. Granted, his prescription can be a stretch. Golf, he says, is an addiction, just like alcohol. Still, it’s his effort not to surrender to either that matters.
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“Is this my second chance?” Daly says. “I’ve had more like 15 chances. But if I can get by today, I’ll worry about tomorrow tomorrow.”
He went out early Thursday and posted a superb 66 in the first round of the PGA Championship at Winged Foot. Once upon a time, with an entire afternoon to himself, Daly would have found the nearest saloon and practiced high balls until last call.
Never again, or so he says. He’s got to be dry or be dead. Daly promised that in 1993, less than two years after he won this tournament as a last-minute entry, but he fell off the wagon, hearing bells. The wheels came off again last March, when he got bombed and rearranged hotel furniture only a driver-wedge away from the tour’s headquarters.
“I can’t change what’s happened,” Daly says. “But I can change what will be.”
Big John’s reinvention is a work in progress. One look at him requires a second glance. Pounds have melted from the formerly puffy frame that used to house his best buddy, Jack Daniels. The tuft of blond hair and the pug-nosed face are covered by a hat. A Hogan-type, no less, as if to complete an artist’s rendering of this fast-forward, fist-pumping Everyman into a prototypically mild-mannered soul so familiar to this serene game.
And yet, there was the new Daly standing over a dilemma Thursday like the old Daly, with a fire in his downsized belly. The tee ball on No. 14 had veered well right, into the considerable rough at Winged Foot. When he lived with so much booze in his blood, maybe he would not have seen the flagstick through the trees. Alas, maybe he would have seen three balls instead of one.
Whatever, on Thursday, Daly calmly yet courageously cut a 7-iron out of that stalemate, and the ball landed 15 feet from the cup. The roar was deafening. Galleries appreciate a regular guy, particularly one whose downs and outs have created such headlines. And so do his peers.
“There was a period there when John would just give up,” Paul Azinger, Daly’s playing partner, acknowledged. “But he’s competing again. I know what it’s like to miss this. I had cancer. John had a different disease, and we’re all rooting for him to beat it.”
Daly wants a piece of the action. Privately, Daly will admit he wants a piece of Tiger Woods. Unabashedly, Daly will tell you he wants to be wanted. He’d like to have more majors than divorces, but he needs strength, and he needs help.
Perhaps Daly has found both in Ely Callaway, the genius behind the Callaway equipment empire. While John was re-rehabilitating at the Betty Ford Center last spring, he went to “Mr. C’s factory” at nearby Carlsbad, Calif. John is swinging those clubs now, and that’s the logo on his Hogan-type cap, but there’s more.
“Only company I’ve ever known,” Daly says, “that put the person before the athlete. Mr. C is like a father to me.”
John’s real father liked the sauce more than he liked his son. Talk about tough love. John can laugh about that now because he’s sober. Besides, tomorrow is a new day, and big John will greet it with vigor. He’s still only 31, still young enough to dig himself out of a terrible lie.