by Jeff Skinner
John Daly has another meltdown on the course, his life starts to fall apart and he says he’s going to get help. Have we seen this before? Only a few dozen times. We have watched him go in and out of rehab numerous times, get married and divorced every year it seems, walk of the course, blow up on the course, drink too much, eat too much and just make a complete mess out of his life more times than it’s worth counting. It looked like he had turned the corner. During his suspension from the PGA Tour Daly spent much of his time in Europe playing the European Tour and dropping pounds from his lap band surgery. He was playing better and better and getting his game back. He also was saying all the right things when it came to keeping his life together. He had sworn off his old group of hangers on, got a new coach, lost a bunch of weight and appeared to be an older and wiser John Daly. He was working on getting ready for his return to the PGA Tour and trying to qualify for the Race to Dubai. He even signed a deal with The Golf Channel for a new reality show. Now he feels like he has lost it to the point he is wondering if he should quit golf. “The last two weeks have been the first time in my career I didn’t think I could win,” Daly said. “I don’t have the feel I used to have. I don’t have the confidence. I just don’t have it. I tried my (tail) off and shot 88. I’ve thrown in the towel and shot 82 when I quit. But I didn’t quit this time. It was a weird feeling.”
According to his coach, Rick Smith, Daly is in trouble, “a toxic state” he called it. It may be the combination of weeks of travel, losing too much weight too quickly, poor nutrition and lack of sleep according to Smith. Whatever it is, Daly needs help. Even he knows it. He says he’ll see his doctor this week and see if he’ll be able to play in the PGA Championship.
This is usually the time the “Daly Bashers” line up and let loose on Big John. I know, I was one of them. I have killed Daly for his horrible and self-destructive behavior before. In my opinion he was wasting his life and his talent as he drank himself into bad situation after bad situation. This time I am not going to bash him. Maybe I am still basking in the glow of so many great and genuine stories in golf lately. Tom Watson, Fred Funk, Catriona Matthew and Tim Jackson are just a few of the players that tugged at our heart these past weeks. So, I’m not going to kick Big John when he is down. I’m going to cheer for him, and wish him good health and hope he can find himself one more time. John Daly needs help. That’s a sentence we have heard before. This time it may be different. I’m rooting for Big John and hoping it’s the last time he’ll need help.
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Check out this video that Devil Ball Golf and The Sporting Blog came across. It’s great and shows how all our hard earned tuition money is being put to use by those golf crazy college kids. I swear I thought I saw my kid in there.
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