My Life in and out of the Rough

by John Daly

  The second most important stat, and the one that determines how you do on the first one, is putting. Finish in the top 10 in putting and you’ve had a great year, period.

  But there are all sorts of other numbers that, taken together, tell you a lot about a pro golfer—about who he is as well as how he’s doing.

  For instance:

  62

  The lowest score I ever had in a PGA Tour event came in the second round of the Invensys Classic at Las Vegas in 2001. A lot of guys went low that week, because my four other rounds were pretty good, too—67, 72, 69, 67—and I only finished T-7. Won $130,000. Pretty sure I left it all in Vegas, and then some.

  87

  The highest score I ever posted in a PGA Tour event came in the third round of the Bay Hill Invitational in 2000. I’d rather not discuss it.

  18

  Q: John, how did you ever make an 18 on the 6th hole at Bay Hill in 1998?

  A: Well, I missed a 3-footer coming back for 17.

  Bet you’ve heard that one before, because Arnold Palmer once used it to explain an 11, and Tom Watson used it to explain a 14. Hey, we all make big numbers now and then. Sometimes because of bad breaks, sometimes because of bad shots, sometimes because of bad judgment—and sometimes because of all three. My 18, which came at Arnold’s tournament, the Bay Hill Invitational, back in 1998, was a classic.

  I’ll tell you how I made it. You tell me whether it was bad breaks, bad shots, bad judgment—or all three.

  The 6th hole at Bay Hill is a dogleg left par 5 that bends 543 yards around a lake. The standard approach is to take the water out of play on your drive, lay up with a 5-iron or something, get it close with a wedge, and make your putt for a birdie. Worst-case scenario, you make par.

  Worst-case scenario? Naah, that would be what I did.

  See, I was two under for the tournament at the time and I was thinking eagle all the way to move up on the leaderboard. That required cutting the corner of the lake and getting myself close enough to go for the green with a mid-iron. That was the plan, at least. Instead, I shaved it too close and got wet. Okay, no problem. I’ll just go up about 50 yards to the drop zone, cut a big 3-wood over the corner of the lake onto the fairway, hit my fourth shot close, and save par.

  Let me say right here what I said back then after my round: this was a good plan, and I had the shot to make it happen. It was a smart play.

  Splash!

  Shit! Now I’m hitting five, in the same spot because I started the ball over the water. Forget eagle, forget saving par, forget moving up on the leaderboard. But I have that shot.

  Splash!

  Splash!

  Splash!

  Splash!

  Thunk—solid ground at last (13). Well, sort of solid: I was buried in a bunker.

  Sand wedge out to fairway (14).

  Six-iron to greenside bunker (15).

  Sand wedge to 25 feet (16).

  Two putts (17, 18).

  (By the way, I birdied the next hole.)

  Needless to say, I was dragged off to the media center after the round to explain to reporters how I made the 18. (You’ll be proud to know that I spared them the joke.) Here’s what I said:

  It wasn’t that I didn’t care. I just lost my patience. I was determined. I knew I had the shot. I had the courage to try it. I just didn’t have the wisdom to bail out. The way I look at it, it’s progress before perfection. I’m not going to worry about it. I just got a hell of a lot of practice with my 3-wood.

  Tom Watson, one of my playing partners, called it “a comedy and a tragedy all in one.” That’s pretty accurate I guess.

  Looking back, with the benefit of hindsight and the wisdom that comes with age, here’s what I think: good plan, easy shot, smart play.

  I did the right thing.

  1

  The number of my career holes in one in tournaments officially sanctioned by the PGA Tour. Hey, it’s not easy: the odds against making a hole in one are about 5,000 to 1.

  —12

  At the 1991 PGA Championship, I played the four par 5s in 12 under. For the tournament, I shot 276—12 under. I won by three strokes. Guess you could say my distance was the key.

  —2

  At the 1995 British Open, I played the two par 5s in two under. For the tournament, I finished at 282—six under. I won in a playoff. Guess you could say my short game came into play.

  17

  The number of tacos I ate to celebrate my 17th birthday.

  On April 28, 1983, the Helias High School golf team was returning to Jefferson City, Missouri, from a golf tournament, and I mentioned that it was my 17th birthday. Coach Hentges, whose son Chris played on the golf team and later went on to be an All-American running back at Iowa State, said, “Great! Congratulations! You get to pick where we stop for dinner.”

  Tough call. Normally back then, it would be McDonald’s or Burger King, but I picked Taco Bell.

  For dessert, we went next door to Burger King, where I had a double chocolate soda and a Whopper with cheese.

  Happy birthday to me.

  2:26

  That’s the time Mark Calcavecchia once took to play one round of golf.

  If you’re in the second group to tee off on the morning of the final round of a golf tournament, it means you played pretty average golf on Thursday and Friday to just barely make the cut and on Saturday you basically blew any chance you might have had of making any noise on Sunday. You tee off Sunday looking to just get it over with and get out of town.

  That’s the position me and Calc found ourselves in at the 1992 Players Championship. We were the second group to tee off that morning, and the first wasn’t even a group: it was Bob Tway, who’d gone off as a single.

  Now, you need to know that me and Calc, we’re the two fastest players on the Tour. We were then and we are now. But we didn’t go up there on the first tee and say the hell with it, let’s go out and play as fast as we can. We weren’t trying to catch an early plane or anything. But I asked Calc, casual-like, what do you say we try to catch Bob? He said sure, okay, whatever—and that’s what we did. We caught him on the 17th hole.

  We did it by hustling between holes, not taking a bunch of practice swings, and not taking forever to line up putts. But we never hit out of turn, and we tried on every shot. It wasn’t like we were raking putts and loading up on seven or eights. I shot 80, and Calc shot 81. Not too shabby for two hours, twenty-six minutes.

  The way I saw it, we were out of the tournament, no way we were going to make any kind of move, so why not give the fans something to enjoy? And believe me, they enjoyed it. There were about 20,000 people already out on the course, waiting for the “real” tournament to begin a couple of hours later, and once they caught on to what we were doing, they went nuts. They were cheering us as we ran past them and they were cheering as we trotted off the green and they were cheering the pretty damned good golf we both played.

  You think they would have had such a good time if we’d slogged around the course, heads down, grinding away, all glum because we were so far out of the tournament? I don’t. I think the people saw we were just having fun. Isn’t that why they call golf a game? And aren’t you supposed to play a game? Play-game-fun—get it?

  Me and Calc said then, and I’ll say again now, that we were in no way disrespecting the game of golf. Actually, we didn’t think all that much about exactly what we were trying to do besides catch Bob Lohr, which we finally did on 16.

  I remember Calc on 18 tee saying, let him try and fine me for this one. He was talking about Beman, and I said, fine us for what? Calc said, you watch, John. He’s going to try to fine us for something.

  But what we did wasn’t a bad thing. Fans sent letters to the PGA Tour saying what a thrill it was for them to see something like that. The fans there had a good time. The fans who may have seen some of it on tape highlights—the live broadcast didn’t begin until after we’d signed our cards—had a good time. Besides, if it had been me and Cal
c playing in a twosome for a tournament at our normal speed with nobody ahead of us, we would have only taken 20, maybe 25 minutes longer. As I said, we both play fast.

  21.3

  That’s how many seconds I take over a putt on average. The average on the PGA Tour: 39.4. Look, I’m the fastest player on the Tour. Lee Trevino said he always played fast because he thought he could pull the shot off and he didn’t want to have time to think about missing it. That’s me all the way. When the pace slows down, I start thinking too much. It affects my putting the most. In 2004, I was one practice swing and boom. Before the 2005 season, some people put it in my head to take more time, and so I started taking two, three practice swings. In 2004 I finished fifth on the Tour in putting average. In 2005 I was 115th. See what I’m saying?

  2002

  That was the last year I led the PGA Tour in driving distance—and most likely the last time I ever will. That year I averaged 306.8 yards. In 2003 I added almost 8 yards (314.3) and dropped a notch, as Hank Kuehne blew past me with 321.4. Since then, young bucks like Bubba Watson and J.B. Holmes have come on the scene, which means Ol’ Long John’s gonna have to be content with bumping it out there 310 and waving as they fly over. That’s okay. I had me a pretty good run as the Tour’s designated long-distance driver: 1991–2002.

  50+

  The number of times I’ve seen Dead Solid Perfect, my all-time favorite golf movie.

  20+

  The number of times I’ve seen Caddyshack, my second all-time favorite golf movie.

  0

  The number of times I was in a movie theater last year. Hey, I have two 42-inch plasma-screen TVs in my bus and a big 72-inch job in my house. Besides, where are you going to find Dead Solid Perfect in a movie theater at the mall these days?

  32

  The number of golf balls I go through in an average tournament—when I make the cut. I beat ’em up pretty good.

  22/6/5

  The typical number of PGA Tour events/European Tour events/Silly Season events I play over the course of a typical year.

  14,600

  The number of Marlboro Lights I smoke per year—two packs a day. (Okay, okay—so maybe it’s really more like 18,250.) I was figuring that out with the calculator on my computer, and I remembered the time when somebody asked me after a round, how many cigarettes did you smoke today, John? I’m like, do you seriously think that I’m out on the golf course counting cigarettes? All I worry about counting on the golf course is strokes.

  514

  The number of gallons of Diet Coke—based on fifteen cans a day, my average—that I drink per year.

  30

  The average number of Monday–Tuesday golf outings and appearances I do each year.

  450

  The number of dollars it takes to fill the gas tank of my tour bus, which is my home on the road. I love that baby.

  35,000

  The number of miles I put on my tour bus every year.

  Too Many

  The number of trips I made to some casino or other in 2005. Figure 25 to 30. Or maybe 35 to 40. But I’m trying to cut back, honest I am.

  Maybe 5—Also Too Many

  The number of times I ate dinner in a sit-down restaurant in 2005. I’m a homebody. I don’t ever want to go out. I hate going out to eat. I never want to go out anywhere, unless it’s to a casino.

  6

  The number of golfers to win two majors before they turned 30: Bobby Jones, Jack Nicklaus, Tom Watson, Johnny Miller, Tiger Woods—and me. I try to think of that every time I start getting on myself for some of the bad shit I’ve done to myself over the years.

  9

  The number of golfers who had to withdraw from the tournament in the week before the 1991 PGA Championship for me to get a chance to grip it and rip it.

  $30,000

  The amount I donated from my 230,000 PGA Championship purse in 1991 to an educational fund for the two daughters of a man who was struck by lightning and killed on the first day of the tournament.

  $55 Million

  My approximate net loss at casinos in the last 15 years. It could be a little more. I know it isn’t any less.

  0

  The number of times I’d fly commercial the rest of my life if I have anything to say about it, even if it means spending my last dime to avoid it. Hey, I don’t mind the fans and signing autographs, but I hate all the other stuff about flying commercial. Get to the airport an hour and a half before departure time? Then sit on the plane for another hour while they get their shit together? Not being able to smoke? Give me my bus any day and point me towards the interstate.

  $1.5 Million

  That’s what my bus cost me, and it was a damned good investment.

  $19,200,000

  The payoff for three high-roller types who supposedly put down $80K each on me at 80-to-1 in England, where betting’s legal, to win the British Open in 1995.

  288.9

  Good for first place (by 6.6 yards) in driving distance on the PGA Tour in 1991.

  288.9

  Good for 97th place in driving distance on the PGA Tour in 2005.

  65 (and Counting)

  The number of signed guitars I have hanging on the walls of my music room in my house in Memphis. They’re signed by musicians I really admire—guys like Johnny Lee, Willie Nelson, Garth Brooks, Moe Bandy, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Glen Campbell, Tom T. Hall, George Jones, Eddie Van Halen, Glenn Frey, Prince, Vince Gill, Graham Nash, Kid Rock, and B. B. King. Also by whole groups: Hootie & the Blowfish, the Rolling Stones, Guns N’ Roses. Most of them, guys have given to me. A few of them, I’ve bought at charity auctions. Sometimes I just look at them and think of all the fine, sweet music they represent. God, I wish I could play half as good as any one of those guys.

  NINE

  THE GIFT OF LOVE

  No two ways about it, I’m an impulsive guy. A lot of the time—okay, most of the time—I do things based on how I feel, then think things through later. Sometimes, that doesn’t work out so good, like when I used to drink too much and punch out a wall, or now, when I gamble too much. But over time, I’ve come to trust my feelings, because I know in my heart that I love people.

  After I won the 1991 PGA, I donated $30,000 to set up an education fund for the two little girls whose father had been killed by lightning the afternoon of the first round. It wasn’t that I had a whole bunch of money to be giving away back then, or that I spent a whole lot of time figuring things out.

  It just seemed like the right thing to do.

  Well, in the summer of 2005, I met those little girls—now young women—for the first time. Now I know for sure that what I did 15 years ago was the right thing to do.

  I like helping people.

  It feels natural.

  A thunderstorm began to move through the area around Crooked Stick on Thursday afternoon during the first round of the 1991 PGA. When that happens at a tournament, sirens sound, play is suspended, and a fleet of carts and vans is sent out to pick up players and caddies and take them back to the clubhouse.

  But how do you evacuate 35,000 spectators? You don’t. They hear the sirens, of course, but they’re out there on their own, many of them a long way from shelter or their cars. Some are sitting in metal bleachers, which are especially vulnerable when lightning moves into an area. Two months before Crooked Stick, a spectator was killed by a bolt of lightning at the U.S. Open at Hazeltine National Golf Club near Minneapolis.

  Damned if the same thing didn’t happen at Crooked Stick. I didn’t become aware of it until the next day, when I read about it in the papers. A man who was seconds away from reaching his car door was hit by lightning. Actually, I think he was carrying an umbrella and that brought the lightning right to him. A couple of EMTs tried to revive him, but it was too late. An hour later, he was pronounced dead at a local hospital.

  How awful is that? We’re out there hitting a little white ball with a stick for millions of dollars, and this man who was only out there to watch
us, support us, have some fun on a summer afternoon, gets killed by lightning.

  The man’s name was Tom Weaver, and he was 39 years old. That’s no age to die, especially when you leave behind a wife and two young children, as Mr. Weaver did.

  I was depressed about the whole thing and for some reason, I felt partly responsible. I never mentioned it to anyone, but I decided on the spot that if I won the tournament, I would do something for Mr. Weaver’s two children. I’m not going to pretend that I’m a spiritual person, but I believe that God put that thought in my head. It came from my heart, and the Good Lord saw to it that I was there when the awful tragedy occurred.

  When I won on Sunday, I delivered on the promise I had made to myself by donating $30,000 of my $230,000 first-place check to a trust fund to provide for the college educations of Mr. Weaver’s two girls, Karen, who was 8 at the time, and Emily, who was 12.

  After I made sure the money was going to be invested properly, I never attempted to contact the Weaver girls. It wasn’t because I didn’t care about them. I just didn’t want to dredge up the awful memory of that terrible day. Imagine being so young and having to hear that news. I also never made a big deal about my contribution because that was between the girls and me. Some celebrities and athletes like to make a splash when they do something charitable, but that’s not my style, and the guys I know on the PGA Tour feel the same way.

  They give a lot back, but they don’t beat their own drum for doing it.

  Last spring, my agent received an e-mail from Steve Fisher, who identified himself as the husband of the former Dee Weaver, who he’d married in 2000. He wanted to get in touch with me to let me know about the girls. Of course, they weren’t girls anymore. Karen was about to graduate from Indiana University, where she majored in biology, with plans to become a doctor. She was still living around Indianapolis. Emily was now married and living in Oswego, Illinois, near Chicago. She was about to earn her degree as a respiratory therapist from the College of DuPage.

  I was really touched. Isn’t it amazing what a little money can do when it’s spent the right way for the right reason?