The hits keep coming for John Daly. Hot on the heels of harassing a news reporter, he has a second war brewing with Calloway, the company that rescued his career years ago so he could flush it even further. To show his gratitude, Daly brought all conversation – polite and otherwise – to a screeching halt by alleging they made him take Paxil and other drugs as a condition to his contract.
How charming. What, no toilet or beer humor?
In the mean time, one of our AWITP faves, Irish writer Karl MacGinty breaks down John Daly by the numbers. From the article:
“3. It’s a measure of Daly’s off-course problems that his unworldly talent has yielded just three ‘regular’ PGA Tour victories — the 1992 BC Open, 1994 Bell South and 2002 Buick Invitational. Other wins on major Tours include the 1993 Dunhill Cup (with Fred Couples and Payne Stewart); the 2001 BMW International in Europe, plus the 2003 Korean Open in Asia.
4. Catastrophically unlucky in love, Daly has racked up four divorces. His relationship with second wife Bettye ended partly because she turned out to be 10 years older than she’d originally told him. Fourth wife Sherrie was sentenced to five month’s prison for pleading guilty to a Federal drugs charge. He has three children, Shynah Hale (17), Sierra Lynn (14) and John Patrick II (6).
5. The most recent of the five suspensions he’s received from the Tour was a six-month ban in November 2008 after he had to be taken into protective custody by police when found drunk outside a Hooters restaurant.
6. The number of times Daly has been placed on probation by the Tour.
7. Daly, who admitted he drank ‘a fifth’ (750ml bottle) of Jack Daniels every day at the age of 23, has been ordered to undergo counselling or enter alcohol rehabilitation on seven occasions by the Tour.
11. According to his disciplinary jacket, Daly has been officially cited 11 times for “conduct unbecoming a professional”. The first was in April 1991 when he cursed at a playing partner during a PGA event.
21. The number of times Daly has been disciplined by the Tour for “failing to give his best efforts”, most famously when he continually pumped balls into a water hazard at the par-five sixth at Bay Hill during the Arnold Palmer Invitational, resulting in a hole score of 18.”
Some people still try to sell us snake oil. They try to tell us that people still want to watch “Big John being Big John,” but they deny reality. We were sick of John Daly years ago. Just because we sometimes read about the ugly fall of celeb-u-tards doesn’t mean we admire it or want to see it lionized by misguided P.R. people and Tv execs who long sold out quality in the name of whatever is lowest common denominator.
That’s the best thing about golf…no matter how much lumps like Daly and Woods try to dumb it down or trick it out, it still resists and endures with grace and class. That’s what the ardent golf fan knows. That’s why Daly may resonate with casual fans – the ones who only like/watch golf for the sideshows – but not with real golfers and fans. They aren’t dazzled by his dubious celebrity. They know it’s not what you do for a living that makes you great, it’s what you do for others.
