1995 / 77th PGA RIVIERA : Doing It Wrong, Hitting It Long

When John Daly, an American original, won the British Open, the golf establishment didn’t know whether to cheer or cry. Whether to wave the flag or reach for a handkerchief. It was either the biggest American victory since Yorktown or the biggest embarrassment since the Boston Massacre.

John Daly’s kind of on golf’s conscience. You all know the image the game likes to project. Your prototype golfer is a smooth, wartless, slim-waisted, wide-shouldered, young, blond graduate of Brigham Young with a broad smile, the manners of a butler and the long lazy swing of a student of the game.

He spends a lot of time on his wardrobe. He’s conscious of his appearance, his reputation. He gets his hair styled, not cut. He eats salad, practices all the time and treats golf as the serious, difficult game it is.

He doesn’t drink, smoke, chew or swear. He’s polite, decorous, meticulous. He goes about his work with the care of a housewife. You’d like your sister to be married to a guy like this. He’s as dependable as a sunrise, as law-abiding as an Eagle scout. He doesn’t even get a traffic ticket.

He doesn’t really attack a golf course, he romances it. He “shapes” shots, lags putts, seldom lets out the shaft. He plays for the middle of the green. He could two-putt Rhode Island. He’s like a watchmaker, a jewel setter.

Then, there’s John Daly. Dear John.

John smokes, chews and swears. He used to drink. A lot.

He’s overweight, overfed--and over-talented.

He fights with spectators and has been known to hit a ball at a crowd. He doesn’t get his hair styled, he gets it cut off. He looks in poor light like something that just stepped out of a flying saucer. He never ate a piece of lettuce in his life. He’d put ketchup on Dover sole. He’d fry filet mignon. He goes around the golf course eating chocolate doughnuts and smoking cigarettes.

Golf doesn’t know what to do with him.

He’d get traffic tickets. He’d get in barroom brawls. He makes no pretense at erudition. When someone asked him how the on-course cuisine was at Riviera, he frowned for a moment, then said: “Oh, you mean food! It’s great! Some lady just gave me a doughnut right out of the box on No. 12 today!”

He does one thing better than anyone. He hits a golf ball farther. Not straighter. Not smarter. Just farther.

Naturally, the public loves him. Of course. They loved Dempsey, didn’t they? Ruth? Gen. Patton? Who wants finesse? You want the world’s greatest putter? You can have him. The crowd wants the Terminator. The guy Schwarzenegger would play if they made the movie on him.

His story is the stuff of legends. You know how they used to have this dream of some old guy showing up at Churchill Downs with a pony on a rope and winning the Kentucky Derby? Or the rube they find hitting rocks in a cow pasture and he winds up breaking light poles in the World Series? Or a Rocky winning the heavyweight title as a street bum? The stand-in who gets pushed on stage to stardom when the leading lady gets ill?

John Daly’s story has elements of all the above. Everyone knows how he drew into the field unexpectedly at the PGA Championship in 1991, arrived by smoking, coughing jalopy just in time to tee off--then electrified the golf world with his mammoth drives to win going away.

It was a plot right out of Disney. But among those who didn’t seem to take it seriously was John Daly.

He sort of resigned himself to being golf’s sideshow freak. Kind of like the bearded lady or the geek who bit chicken heads off. People came from miles around to see him hit the golf ball. They didn’t care where it went. Neither, it seemed, did Daly. He got the galleries, somebody else got the trophy.

So, golf was not concerned. It had seen these big hitters before--the Jimmy Thomsons, George Bayers, Marty Fleckmans, Mike Souchaks. They had to learn to throttle it back or else. They hit the fairway--or they hit the highway.

The trouble with John was, he wouldn’t go quietly. Just when the game thought it had him pigeon-holed, he’d jump and win something. Nothing big--the B.C. Open, whatever that is, the BellSouth Classic.

Then, he won the--Oh, no!--British Open. Golf needed smelling salts. They were afraid he’d clap the Queen on the back, ask the prime minister if he’d heard the one about the two rabbis and the priest, drink coffee with the spoon in.

Daly hit Riviera this week to a chorus of flashing cameras, multitudes of microphones thrust in his face, autograph books and an appearance on “The Tonight Show” and a cameo in an airport driving contest. The accouterments of fame.

Has winning the British changed John Daly? Not so you’d notice it.

He hit Riviera running this week and it looked like the same old John Daly to the great game. The contemplative players were busy sawing Riviera in half, but John went for the frontal assault as usual. He ignored the trouble and went to the whip. It was vintage Daly. He went birdie, par, bogey, par, birdie, double bogey, birdie, par, par, par, par, triple bogey, par, bogey, par, birdie, bogey, bogey. Classic Daly. Grip it and rip it. Then go find it.

It’d take more than a British Open to make a proper golfing gentleman out of Our John. It’d take an act of Parliament. Even then, look for him to spot Prince Charles in the gallery, sidle over and mutter: “Say, Bo. Got a light?”

His 76 might not keep him in this PGA over the weekend. The golf establishment might be relieved. But for the viewers, it’s a little like John Wayne getting killed in the first reel. Who do you root for the rest of the way?