LONG JOHN DOES IT AGAIN!
He’s larger than life and still winning tournaments! Compiled by RICHARD VAN RENSBERG
UNFIT, overweight, undisciplined, chain-smoking – he’s the antithesis of the modern sportsman. But that’s probably why people like old “Long John” so much. Despite his flaws, John Daly is a golfing force to be reckoned with and pundits believe few players have as much raw talent as the colourful 51-year-old. He proved this recently when he won big at the Insperity Invitational in Texas, USA, his first PGA (Professional Golfers’ Association) tournament in 13 years.
“It wasn’t pretty at the end but hey, a win’s a win,” said John, wackily clad as ever in the Stars and Stripes. Esteban Toledo, his friend and fellow golfer, doused him with champagne while Anna Cladakis, his caddy and the woman soon to become his fifth wife, stormed towards him in matching Stars and Stripes shorts. “I hung in there . . . That’s all that matters,” he quipped.
Over the years he’s become known for his impressive drives, which gave rise to the nickname Long John.
John, who’s from California, won five PGA tournaments and two Majors (the PGA championships and the British Open), but was mostly known for being the person on the PGA tour who could hit the ball the furthest.
His 115-kg bulk helps power his long drives – but so too does his impressive technique. “Daly takes full advantage of the tremendous speed in his swing. He might not look like an athlete but he possesses impeccable balance,” a former PGA coaching director explained.
But it’s more John’s status as a rebel and his honesty about his weaknesses that endear him to his phalanx of fans.
Wild Thing, his other nickname, first popped up in the ’90s thanks to his crazy behaviour on the green, love of partying and tumultuous personal life.
John, whose favourite golf phrase “Grip it and rip it” is displayed on T-shirts in his Loudmouth clothing range, played a round of golf barefoot, bare-chested and with a cigarette in the corner of his mouth on a warm day in 2008 on a Missouri golf course – which he helped design.
PGA bigwigs didn’t approve of him letting his stomach hang out in front of the TV crews, but he was unfazed.
HE SELDOM hides his frustrations. John’s hurled his club into the water after his ball landed in the wet and once when a bystander was taking too many pictures of him he threw the poor guy’s camera against a tree. He admits to being undisciplined when it comes to eating and drinking but dropped about 45 kg in 2009 after a surgical procedure. The eccentric sportsman has also been open about his struggles with alcohol and gambling. “If I don’t get control of my gambling it’s going to flat-out ruin me,” he revealed in his 2006 biography, My Life In And Out Of The Rough – and at that point he’d already lost millions of dollars. He’s been in rehab three times but Anna, who’s also his business partner, is apparently now helping to keep him on the straight and narrow. They met nine years ago after he divorced fourth wife, Sherrie Miller – who once apparently attacked him with a steak knife. But beneath John’s in-your-face attitude beats a heart of gold. He’d barely won his first Major in 1991 when he donated $30 000 (then R75 000) to the family of a spectator who’d died after being struck by lightning. He’s a devoted dad to Shynah (24), Sierra (21) and John Patrick Jnr, aka “Little John” (13), who started playing competitively after they entered a father-son tournament last year. John insists his boy lives by his motto: “I don’t care what you did, just don’t lie.”
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