John Daly makes his champions Tour debut at the Insperity Invitational today and there is plenty of buzz surrounding Big John’s chance at golf’s greatest mulligan.
Daly has had more issues than a Donald Trump Rally but his grip it and rip it attitude and “every-man” persona has won him millions of devoted and loyal fans.
He has had so many ups and downs both professional and personal and all the time having them played out in the media.
Daly Rippin it in ’05
I remember seeing Daly at the 2005 PGA Championship and his grouping had to be one of the longest hitting of the day. Big John, Vijay Singh and Davis Love III. They were three of the longest in the game then and Daly hasn’t lost much…at least with his driver.
He stormed onto the golf scene with his 1991 PGA Championship win and many of us think that he couldn’t handle the fame and fortune that came in the next few years. But actually his issues started long before that.
Jaime Diaz of Golf World tells us about the first time he met Daly and the trouble was brewing long before he cashed that PGA check.
The messiness was evident the first time I met Daly, at the Yale University Golf Course during the 1990 New Haven Open in the inaugural season of the Ben Hogan (now Web.com) Tour. He was 24 out of Dardenelle, Ark., and admittedly broke, thankful to have won $500 the previous day in the tournament’s long-drive contest with a poke of 340 yards. Twice that year, Daly would be admitted to a hospital for treatment after bouts of drinking.
Still, even as purists blanched at a backswing in which the club was closer to perpendicular than parallel, there was no doubt Daly possessed special talent. More than a year later at Crooked Stick in Indiana, on a wet course with wide fairways and doglegs Pete Dye never envisioned anyone cutting, Daly turned loose the power and blew away the field. With his caddie, the late Jeff (Squeaky) Medlin, quietly urging him with the simple command “Kill,” Daly regularly outdrove his playing partners by 50 yards. “It was unbelievable the way he cut that course in half with his driver,” said Sam Snead, who in the 1930s had similarly captivated golf fans with his length and unlikely beginnings.
It was as raw, emotional and inspirational a victory as golf has ever seen. When it was over, a teary-eyed Daly put his own spin on the final scene of “Rocky” by paying tribute to his boyhood idol, Jack Nicklaus, crying “I love you, Jack!” into a microphone.
A few months later, the new PGA champion met Nicklaus in person for the first time at the Skins Game. Clearly sensing a lost soul, Nicklaus offered an open invitation to call or visit anytime Daly might want to talk. Daly never took Nicklaus up on the offer, and a few weeks later tore up his home during a drunken rage.
I am sure I am not the only one that wonders how Daly’s life would have played out if he had taken Nicklaus up on his offer.
But then there were many chances for Daly to change his ways but that was never an option when your nickname is Wild Thing.
The Champions Tour is a second chance for most golfers to continue making a living playing a game. It’s the ultimate second chance and like no other in sport.
Now it’s up to John to see if he doesn’t screw this one up too.
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