Ron Sirak Agrees – Stop Enabling Daly

I wrote it here and at Cybergolf back at the PGA Championship; the enabling and coddling of John Daly needs to stop, for his own good and the good of his little boy. I wrote:

“His opening-round 67 and comedy-routine press conference won the last few remaining hearts and minds that had never quite been his before. “I finally get him now,” remarked Yahoo Sports writer Michael Arkush, a stalwart desk companion all week in Row L, seats 9-10, the space we shared for the tournament.

I get Daly too, and so now I must stop for a moment and ask us all the most important question to come out of this tournament: More important than Tiger, more important than golf, more important than majors or records or trophies. It’s a question of life and death. Why are we doing nothing to save him from himself? I used to agree with many that Daly was wasting his talent. But after seeing firsthand the horror of watching loved ones crumble from addiction, I know I was so horribly, horribly wrong. How can you or I or any of us stand by and let him die?

That’s right, I said it. If John Daly dies, his blood is on our hands because whether we truly love him or we are merely watching what we perceive to be a golf soap opera, we are enabling him by helping him on the road to self-destruction, or we are just standing by and doing nothing. Omission is just as bad as commission.

People say he’s tried everything. Hogwash, I say. So what, he failed? We all have failed. It’s not how many times you get knocked down – it’s how many times you get back up.

But therein is the insidious nature of addiction. It strikes from behind. It erodes willpower first, then self esteem and respect, then finally the body. The outer shell won’t crumble until the inside rots first. Decay goes unchecked, but worse, unseen. The spiral continues, worsening with each passing day. The addict screams out for help, but is helpless to help himself. People think addicts can just quit, but they can’t. They are not ugly, brutish people “who get what they deserve for their self indulgence,” as one unenlightened lunkhead said. Sometimes it’s genetics, sometimes it’s low self-esteem. It could be any kind of trigger, from a cell phone ring tone, to the voice of a woman, to a neon flash of a dim dusty bar out on a dismal highway.”
Ron Sirak has seen the light now and agrees. From the article:

“We have been enablers, all of us. And if the John Daly story has a tragic final chapter we will all be to blame. At a certain point, self-destructive behavior cannot be viewed as a commodity to be bought and sold — not by the PGA Tour, not by the sponsors, not by the fans and not by the media. The Daly show is no longer funny.”
Ron, I only disagree with two things. First, the Daly show ceased to be funny long ago. Just like it took the mainstream media far too long to see the Michelle Wie vs. the men quest was ill-fated and ill-conceived, so too did they take too long to realize Daly needs serious help. Second, not all of us were enablers. Some of us, like Steve Czaban, were hollering long ago, but mainstream writers were either too dismissive of such concerns, or were hell-bent on reaping the benefits of enabling Daly.

It’s more important for a journalist to have an original, passionate, and OBSERVANT voice, not to follow the crowd in jumping on a bandwagon. Had we been more concerned earlier, maybe John would have done a better job of conquering both his demons and the golf course. Observant people saw that, just like they saw Michelle Wie was grinding gears. Occasionally, the media’s sin is in stifling those “party-poopers” who actually dare to report the truth and the dark side of issues.
The solution is not just cutting out the sponsor’s exemptions or suspending Daly, he needs help. With all the money the PGA TOUR has, there should be top-notch addiction in-patient, outpatient and therapeutic treatments with people there to help Daly get better. That’s the answer. Not just disposing of him and moving on the the next sensation.