As Always, It Was a Long Day for Daly

Are you already sick of John Daly? Or maybe you still can’t get enough. Maybe you hunger for every juicy detail of Daly’s first day at the Masters. Or maybe you can’t stand the thought of reading any more Daly news.

Had you seen him play golf in person here Thursday, I think I know what you would be dying to know.

More, more, more.

John Daly, the Arkansas strongboy, the country clubber, shot a 71 in his first Masters round.

Far more importantly, no golf balls were killed.

You don’t necessarily watch John Daly to see him win. You watch John Daly to see if he knocks the cover off the ball. To see if the ball tries to have him arrested.

He is the Cecil Fielder of golfers. Other guys play better. Other guys hit them straighter. But who hits ‘em farther?

Shortly after high noon, Daly approached the practice range. He unholstered his driver like a gun.

Other golfers, Fred Couples, Larry Mize, stopped what they were doing. Spectators milled around. Daly arched his back like a cat, then bent and teed up a ball.

No warm-ups. No practice swings. He laid into one.

There was a whoosh like the ones from “Superman” when he goes out the window.

At least four people said the same four words, simultaneously.

“Did you see that?”

“Did you see that?”

Couples shook his head and smiled and went back to his business. Mize put his hand to his eyebrows, Indian scout-style, and followed Daly’s ball into the clouds.

They raised and extended the protective net here that keeps driving-range shots from leaving the premises. One theory says this was done because of Daly, that there was danger to passing windshields, that some customer at the restaurant across the road might suddenly find Daly’s golf ball in his food.

That’s why this guy is another Cecil Fielder.

A lot of players put the ball in play. But the guy people love most is the guy who can belt them over the fence.

So, don’t bother reminding me what John Daly has or hasn’t won since last August. Tell me a year from now. Or the year after that.

Until then, the phenomenon is real.

After watching him Pied Pipering an Arnie-sized audience across the green pastures of Augusta National, I can tell you in all sincerity that I can’t remember seeing any New Kid on the Tee capture the public’s imagination the way this one has.

On the first hole, the gallery was 10 deep. Daly disappointed nobody, sending his tee shot screaming, 310 yards down the fairway.

“Did you see that?”

“Did you see that?”

Yes, there have been other young, hot, gifted golfers du jour. Keith Clearwater. Chris Patton. Robert Gamez. Phil Mickelson. The Masters has had them coming and going. Some will be back. Some will draw crowds.

But the big banger from Dardanelle, Ark., with the blond bangs, well, there is something about him. That down-home manner, maybe. Or that rough edge that other golfers have smoothed over by the time they hit the tour.

Daly is the one who lives in a mobile home.

The one who isn’t crazy about airplanes, because: “They don’t have McDonald’s up there.”

The life and times of John Daly already have been of enough interest that even a palimony suit filed against him (later dropped) made headlines. During a practice round here Wednesday, a man interrupted Daly on the course and appeared to serve him papers.

Daly wouldn’t say what kind of document it was, but he smiled sort of sheepishly and said:

“No big deal. I just threw it in my bag. Nothing’s going to hurt me this week.”

Playing with Fuzzy Zoeller, who kept him loose, Daly did pretty well in his Augusta debut. Had his putting not been so ordinary--he missed seven putts of eight feet or less--things might have gone even better for the man who qualified for the Masters by being the out-of-nowhere winner of last August’s PGA Championship at Crooked Stick.

Jack Nicklaus called this course made to order for Daly, who partly agreed.

“From tee to fairway, it is,” Daly said. “But it takes time to learn how to putt here.

“The way I’m putting now, I don’t see myself winning the tournament. My goal is still to make the top 20. I feel this is a place I can win, eventually, but maybe not just yet.”

When his round was over, Daly spent time on the practice green, stroking some putts.

A crowd gathered there, too.

And, true story, one spectator turned to another and said:

“Did you see how far his putts go?”