Skip to content

Castrodale: Love him or hate him, John Daly has never deceived us

Jul 15, 2010, 3:00 PM EDT

36 Comments

There are two rows of golfers standing in front of St. Andrews’ famed Royal and Ancient clubhouse, stiffly arranged like a windswept second grade class. Most of the men fall into either category: Royal, like Sir Nick Faldo, or Ancient, like 87-year old Roberto De Vicenzo, who has ear hair older than your parents. Their names are all engraved on the British Open’s claret jug but only a handful are immediately recognizable, even to people whose golf experience is limited to playing barroom games of Golden Tee until they either run out of quarters or coordination.
One of the most familiar mugs belongs to John Daly, who stands in the back row with another — Tiger Woods — on his left. Despite their matching Q-scores, nothing illustrates their differences better than this picture. Daly has a do-it-yourself haircut and a retina-searing sportscoat, the double-breasted equivalent of a solar eclipse. Tiger is in a somber black suit, giving the kind of pained-looking smile you get from undertakers or oil executives. Actually, the men with the BP logo on their business cards are the only ones who have had a worse year than Woods has. Or who have killed as many crabs.


After today’s first round, both Daly and Woods are hovering near the top of the leaderboard. Daly carded a six-under 66, while wearing a pair of psychedelic purple pants that looked like a Jerry Garcia stool sample. Woods strolled into the clubhouse an hour later after signing off on a 67. Both of them have made out with the claret jug on the St. Andrews grounds, Daly in 1995 and Woods in 2000 and 2005, but the crowd was just buzzing over one of them today, the one with the tangled love life and the unfinished divorce and the endless emotional problems. The one named John Daly.
It shouldn’t be this easy to pull for Daly. In his nineteen-year PGA career, he’s been suspended from the Tour six times, accumulated fines worth over $100,000 for his behavior, and has twenty-one incidences of “failure to give best efforts”, which is the Association’s attorney’s way of saying he’s walked off the course mid-round. Daly is just two ex-wives short of a six pack, he’s gambled away an admitted $50 million and has struggled equally with Jack Daniels and Jack-in-the-Box. But maybe that’s part of his appeal; he’s never had a fall from grace because he never had it to start with.
Or maybe it’s the fact that he’s been honest about his problems, never hiding behind scripted soundbites or salaried PR representatives unlike someone else who walked the gorse-lined fairways this afternoon. Although Tiger’s car wasn’t totaled when he landscaped his neighbor’s yard with his Escalade, his persona was. In the weeks that followed November’s pre-dawn disaster, we learned more about Tiger Woods than he’d said in ten years worth of press tent appearances, revealing himself through Spectravision-caliber text messages he’d sent to a number of women with euphemistic-sounding occupations.
We’d been had. Everything we thought about Tiger Woods was a lie, save for the fact that he golfed like he’d challenged the Devil to a Par-3, “Winner-Takes-Soul” style contest. John Daly, for all of his faults, hasn’t ever misled us. He’s always portrayed himself as Larry the Cable Guy with a caddie and a scorecard, speaking his mind even when his words may have been slurred. Yeah, he has more problems than that Jay-Z song, but they’ve been largely self-inflicted and always self-destructive. Tiger, by contrast, just looks selfish.
Lazy journalists refer to Daly as an “everyman”, which isn’t accurate unless you finish the sentence with “everyman who is familiar with the afternoon shift at the Pole Katz Strip Klub,” but it’s easier for most of us to relate to Daly’s approach and almost accidental golf career. Tiger was raised to be a champion, subsisting on a steady diet of approach shots and lag puts, perfecting his swing before he was potty trained. Daly taught himself the game on a scruffy Arkansas muni course, playing with the used balls he’d pull out of the water hazards.
When Tiger debuted on tour, it was planned, calculated, sponsored. “Hello world,” he said in his first press conference, his sentences already ending in Nike swooshes and dollar signs. When he won his first major, it was impressive but expected, like Lindsay Lohan’s STD collection. Daly crashed at countless Days Inns on the Nationwide Tour before qualifying for the PGA in 1991 and — improbably — winning the PGA Championship later that year. When he found out he’d made the field (as the ninth alternate), he spent all night driving odd-numbered interstates from Memphis to Indiana. He changed shoes in the Crooked Stick parking lot and proceeded to leave his footprints all over the field.
“I don’t have anybody to blame for this win but me,” he said after his victory, and he’s carried that same attitude out of the locker room and into his life. The wins haven’t come as often — and not at all since 2004 — but he’s continued to hack away, even though most of the names from the ’91 leaderboards have swapped their three irons for 2.5 kids and a life away from the Tour.
Off the course, Daly has long since filled his “Nobody to Blame But Me” file cabinet. He’s been married in a casino, remained committed to the mullet hairstyle and was arrested outside a North Carolina Hooters, successfully completing the white trash trifecta.
dalybritishopen02.jpg
Surprisingly his ruddy-cheeked Forsyth County mugshot (where he looked disturbingly like Janet Reno in an orange jumpsuit) wasn’t his lowest point. For that, he could pick between being allegedly stabbed by his estranged wife, selling his own memorabilia across from the entrance to Augusta National or recording a country album with half of Hootie and the Blowfish. By the time he launched his own clothing line — one that featured a lion as a logo — Daly looked less like the King of the Jungle and more like an aging attraction at a nature preserve.
But he’s still out there, still trying, even though he’s long since lost the sponsors for his clubs and golf balls. In the past five years, he’s missed more cuts than he’s made, but he’s making an effort to leave some of his bad habits in a roadside bunker. He still chain smokes and pounds Diet Coke, but since having lap band surgery he no longer sweats sawmill gravy. Daly has dropped over one hundred pounds so far — the equivalent of that surly girl from the Twilight series — so he and Tiger Woods both weigh in at 185 pounds.
“Who will [Daly] be?”, Sports Illustrated asked in 1991 after his Carl Spackler-approved, “outta nowhere” PGA Championship win. At times — incredible, near-perfect times like today — he looks just like who he was, with a game as loud as his pants. He can still launch the ball over three hundred yards and still has a supersized swing, one where he takes the club so far past parallel that his driver droops like Gandalf’s ‘nads.
After today’s round, Daly is tied for third place, behind Northern Ireland’s young Rory McIlroy whose record-setting 63 put him on top. Tiger Woods is part of a nine-way tie for eighth place — and that’s probably not the first time his name has preceded the word “nine-way”. With two previous Open wins at St. Andrews, Woods is playing against history and against the memories of what he used to be and what we thought he was.
Daly is — as always — competing against himself. I hope he wins.
***
Jelisa Castrodale is a writer and comedian who has learned a lot about life by making a mess of her own. She chronicles her failures at The Typing Makes Me Sound Busy, and twitters while she waits at stoplights. Castrodale was featured in the book Twitter Wit and was named one of Mashable’s 10 Funniest Twitterers. Contact her at jacastrodale@gmail.com.
Also by Jelisa Castrodale …

Skip to Comments (36)
More Off the Bench
Back to Homepage
  1. Real Optimist - Jul 15, 2010 at 8:21 PM

    Is this article a script from a standup comedy act, a roast, or something even more sophomoric? Yeah, I had a couple of chuckles, especially with the brilliant description of Daly’s pants today as “psychedelic purple pants that looked like a Jerry Garcia stool sample.”
    But the fact remains that this seemingly endless tirade against Tiger’s personal life just distracts us from what is an indisputable truth of our time: Tiger is simply the best golfer who has ever played, even if he never exceeds the venerable Jack Nicklaus’ 18 majors wins.
    John Daly also occupies an indisputable truth: he is the biggest waste of professional golfing talent of our generation. Between Tiger and John, I am whole-heartedly favoring John Daly as my favorite, acknowledging full well that he will break my heart with his all-too-familiar implosions over the weekend for one reason or another. John Daly has been haunted by addictions, poor personal decisions, and is now only two years younger than Jack Nicklaus was when he improbably won his final major. Daly does seem to have turned the corner with his Herculean weight loss, ostensible sobriety, and better attitude. I hope he does conclude his career with a flourish, finally giving us another glimpse of his preternatural golfing skills.
    If Daly was Tiger’s age, instead of being ten years older at 44, he may be able to give Tiger what Phil, Ernie, and the rest of the cadre have been unable to do: a legitimate challenge. Hell, at 44, he has already surpassed Tiger at least in the first round in the most decorated of majors, and on the most hallowed of golf courses. Daly is a frustrating exercise in “what could’ve been”. But for today, and this round, he excelled against the world’s greatest golfers, and that is a gift in and of itself for golf fans everywhere.

  2. ron - Jul 15, 2010 at 8:25 PM

    who cares what you thought he was. get a life. stupid article. he owes you nothing. everythibng he sais or does is wrong in medias eyes. pure jealousy. im sure that all of you are not angels. everyone has a dark side. just get over it already. you make me sick. best golfer in the world. thats all i care about and yes i can enjoy his golf evern if he cheats on his wife.

  3. Johnny B - Jul 15, 2010 at 8:30 PM

    Hilarious! And beautifully written. I hope Daly beats Tiger by one in a playoff.

  4. Bobby - Jul 15, 2010 at 8:35 PM

    i 100 percent agree with the statement above. Also it seems ignorant to compare them even career wise. Tiger has been in the spotlight at the innocent age of 4, so already the lovable young extremely talented golfer was showing skills which would grow and amaze overtime. The media built up his image, and the corporations built off of those standards multiple lucrative advertising and merchandise money.

  5. vizzon - Jul 15, 2010 at 8:38 PM

    who pays u 2/write this crap!! if daly dnt hav an ok day u wouldnt even b/mentioning him!!!!

  6. phil - Jul 15, 2010 at 9:18 PM

    After reading that crack about stool samples, I almost gave one myself!

  7. coop2010 - Jul 15, 2010 at 9:22 PM

    Your a racist,how do you know that John Daly has come clean about everything. You also assume that other players don’t cheat on their wives. Do some investigating on your own and earn your paycheck instead of inticing people with your totally racist comments. you hate Tiger and you Don’t know whether John Daly was drunk when he played today. Stop taking the easy way out you fraud.

  8. WhoCaresAboutJelisa? - Jul 15, 2010 at 9:27 PM

    Not sure if you are a man or a woman Jelisa…so I will call you Pat.
    Pat…do you write for TMZ or The Enquirer, or just get your writing style from them? How on God’s Green Earth does anything in this article have anything to do with golf? I’m not even sure you used the word “golf” in it at all.
    Please tell me your parents aren’t around to see you write such garbage and have them see their…Pat…go down the wrong path.
    Golf, Golf, Golf, Golf…just helping you out a little.

  9. Marcelo Barreiro - Jul 15, 2010 at 9:37 PM

    The Daly article was very nice work, insightful and funny and in my estimation accurate. Just a guy trying to get by, happens to be a decent golfer. As a public, we cannot abide a liar, but can forgive someone that keeps on keeping on, in spite of his shortcomings.

  10. Concerned-Memphian - Jul 15, 2010 at 9:47 PM

    Cool article. Entertaining read! Go John!
    Some have said that it’s sad when someone with superstar talent doesn’t take advantage of their superstar talent to become a superstar.
    Before taking shots at Daly, I would ask that you take a look at your life and ask yourself if you have lived up to your own potential. Even if you aren’t exceptionally gifted in some area, have you made the absolute most of what potential you actually have?
    If you are reading this instead of working with whatever talent you have to be your very best, chances are the answer is “no.” So give a guy like Daly a break and wish him the best of luck this weekend!

  11. Concerned-Memphian - Jul 15, 2010 at 9:51 PM

    What? What the hell are you even talking about, Coop? How the heck you can draw anything at all racist from this article is beyond me.

  12. gnk - Jul 15, 2010 at 10:28 PM

    Man,
    I am so tired of these babies crying about Tiger. I can’t believe a grown man is worrying about Tiger deceiving him. Get a life man. We have so many hiprocritical people in the media. Athletes are not role models period. Stop it once and for all. They simply play a sport – nothing more.

  13. John - Jul 15, 2010 at 10:29 PM

    Bill Clinton was the President of the United States and cheated on his wife and got less bad press than Tiger. Great men are human and make mistakes.

  14. coop2010 - Jul 15, 2010 at 10:40 PM

    John Daly is White ,Tiger Woods is a minority . Tiger is wrong because he didn’t tell the truth,and John Daly is forgiven because he came clean . Give me a break!.Tiger is a man thats made mistakes in his life just like every man in this world. He is the greatest golfer in history.Dan Patrick admitted on his radio show this week that he and other people at ESPN smoked pot behind the scenes at ESPN infront of their boss, and no one in the media is investigatin these claims because Dan is white and part of the brotherhood of sports media.Yes Concerned i bleive their is racism in sports media and i respect your opinon.I hope you respect mine. Don’t let the sports media fool you. Call them out when they make mistakes or when they intice you for obvious reasons.

  15. slc13 - Jul 15, 2010 at 11:11 PM

    Great article!!!! Enjoy it for what it is—an entertaining “read”

  16. W. Eves - Jul 15, 2010 at 11:24 PM

    Maybe if this were a political website, they would talk about Bill Clinton or Andrew Jackson or any of DC’s other cheaters. But it’s not so let them write about Tiger.
    Nicely done Jelissa.

  17. Baoyu - Jul 15, 2010 at 11:36 PM

    Great article! I laughed at the humor and completely agreed with the overall view.
    Seems like one thing rarely gets mentioned about Tiger, and maybe because it’s assumed somehow: How much integrity or sincerity does he have, that’s not innately tied to money?
    I have more respect for someone who humbles themselves to come clean and be straight with others, regardless of their past behavior. John Daly and Mike Tyson have their “demons”, but they are human. They’ll talk from the heart. There’s something to be said about that, and it’s especially easy to appreciate that humility when it’s so obviously lacking in others (Woods).
    We’re all screw-ups. We’ve all made mistakes and hopefully we’ve learned from them. It seems that Tiger has only learned how avoid being human.

  18. Dare 2 - Jul 16, 2010 at 12:17 AM

    Sophomoric? Are you kidding me? That was clever ,insightful, witty, topical, original and just plain funny. As to whether her parents know how she spends her time I’d imagine if they read this article they’re busting their buttons right about now.

  19. me - Jul 16, 2010 at 12:25 AM

    You’ve got to be kidding me!!!! Are you serious!!!!!! You actually get paid to write this crap!!!!

  20. me - Jul 16, 2010 at 12:30 AM

    Remind me to never read anything you write again….dumb a**!

  21. jay - Jul 16, 2010 at 12:40 AM

    Great article. Very funny. I never liked Tiger Woods since he joined the PGA Tour. A real self-centered, ego- driven superstar…kinda like Barry Bonds. AND Coop…sorry to hear “the man” is still holdin ya down.

  22. fredegrar - Jul 16, 2010 at 12:44 AM

    Okay, the article was maybe a little too dense with one-liners, but some of them made me laugh. I liked it. I also like John Daly – just as a guy who has always been a hot mess and yet still manages to play professional golf. He gives me hope. I mean, if John Daly can get away with all the stuff he does and STILL gets to play a game for a living, maybe there’s still a chance for the rest of us… just as soon as we perfect our 300+ yard drives, that is.

  23. John - Jul 16, 2010 at 2:46 AM

    Maybe if the article was about sports and not about petty putdowns on personal lives I would agree. Still think the comparison is relevant. I guess for some people that can’t grasp the parallel I should have used Kobe Bryant or dozens/hundreds of other sports greats?
    It came out.
    It was news for months and months.
    Everyone disapproves of cheating.
    Everyone makes mistakes. From the smallest to the greatest.
    Move on already.
    What is Tiger lying about anyway? That he likes to play golf? That he’s good at golf? That he likes to win? Think all of those are still true.

  24. Dan - Jul 16, 2010 at 2:51 AM

    Better hope for your sake that Lohan DOES have multiple STD’s, otherwise you’ve potentially subjected yourself to possible charges of slander. And throwing in a “crabs” comment wasn’t very wise either.

  25. dan - Jul 16, 2010 at 2:53 AM

    Better hope for your sake that Lohan DOES have multiple STD’s, otherwise you’ve potentially subjected yourself to possible charges of slander. And throwing in a “crabs” comment wasn’t very wise either.

1 2
Leave Comment

You must be logged in to leave a comment. Not a member? Register now!

More Off the Bench
Back to Homepage