PGA Champion Daly Drives Into the Limelight

The pitching and wooing of Long John Daly began in earnest Monday, less than a day after this virtually unknown professional golfer race-walked up the 18th fairway Sunday afternoon, knocked in a six-foot putt for par and became the unlikeliest winner of the PGA Championship in its 73-year history.

Daly appeared on “CBS This Morning,” the first of several national television appearances, and tournament sponsors, equipment manufacturers, shoe and apparel companies and all the rest surely will be lining up to get in on a piece of the action with a player who drove to Crooked Stick Golf Club in Carmel, Ind., just last Wednesday night not even knowing if he’d be playing the following morning.

Now, four days later, his life surely will be changed forever after his three-shot victory and 12-under score of 276. Already some people are talking about this Tour rookie with the wispy mustache and the build of an outside linebacker as the best thing to happen to golf since Arnold Palmer started hitching up his pants and making incredible shots in the 1950s, pulling a small army of fans with him and lifting the game to new heights.

That may be a bit premature, though there was no question that this 25-year-old slugger from Dardanelle, Ark., clearly stirred passions with his no-nonsense walk-and-whack pace, his phenomenal length off the tee and his deft touch with his short irons and putter.

Daly played on the developmental Ben Hogan circuit a year ago and his highest finish on Tour in his rookie season this year was a third at Chattanooga. But now he joins his hero, Jack Nicklaus, as well as Lee Trevino, Jerry Pate, Jeff Sluman and Orville Moody as the only players ever to win their first event in a major championship.

The Tour has produced a number of first-time winners this season, including Billy Andrade, who won the Kemper here on June 2. Daly actually is the sixth straight first-time winner of a U.S. event this season.

This also was a clearcut case of horses for courses. Daly -- definitely a big old Clydesdale -- won at the brutally long 7,290-yard Crooked Stick layout that seemed ideally suited for his game.

Even so, Daly had never approached the kind of accuracy with his driver he exhibited here, hitting 35 of 56 fairways over the four days with tee shots that averaged 300 yards and even left fellow competitors slack-jawed.

“This might be written down as a one-week phenomenon,” said runner-up Bruce Lietzke, “but I don’t think so. You might have a one-week miracle on the PGA Tour, but not in a major. I certainly lean toward the kid being real. If he has the swing going and the touch, he could be the guy who starts winning seven or eight golf tournaments a year. We haven’t had that kind of guy in a long time.”

Now, it’s up to Long John Daly to write the next few chapters.