Nothing Perfect About Daly’s Finish

How not to play the 18th hole, by John Daly: Make a 10.

Daly was five over par through 35 holes and had just birdied the 16th and 17th, but he fell apart at No. 18 when he took five shots to get out of a fairway bunker.

Daly hit his drive into a fairway bunker and found another fairway bunker with his second shot. He left the ball in the bunker with his next four shots, knocked his seventh shot into a greenside bunker, got to the green in eight and two-putted from 10 feet. Add it up and you’ve got a sextuple bogey 10.

Payne Stewart, who was keeping Daly’s card, wasn’t sure what Daly had shot and neither was Daly, but Bernhard Langer helped count too.

“I said ‘John, I’ve got to put a number in here that’s right,’ ” Stewart said. “I can’t just go yes on what you’re saying. He said ‘It doesn’t matter, give me a 10.’

“That’s what Bernhard and I both thought he’d made.”

Daly threw his club at his bag and after signing his scorecard, left the course without comment, unless you count the epithet he shouted when he threw his ball against the wall of the clubhouse.

The 1995 British Open champion finished with a 78 and wound up missing the cut at 11 over.

“If he makes five on the hole, he’s going to be playing tomorrow,” Stewart said. “When you hit it in those bunkers, you just have to take your medicine. He was not a happy camper when he left here.”

It’s not the first time Daly has made a big number this year. At Bay Hill in March, Daly took an 18 on No. 6 in the third round when he hit five consecutive balls into the water.

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For anyone watching on television who might be wondering about all that scruffy/leafy/flowering/odd-looking vegetation the players are tromping on when they miss the fairway, look no further.

Here’s a brief guide: Lady’s-smock is the mauve-flowered stuff in the damp grassland. Sea Buckthorn is the scrub with the orange berries. Gorse is the thick, prickly stuff. Screw Moss is small, but you can see it in green patches in many places. Marram Grass grows on the dunes. Common Polypody is that fern-looking thing (because it is a fern). Corsican Pines are all over the place.

Now you know.

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Steve Elkington, who had a first-round 75, withdrew because of a pinched nerve in his neck. Elkington said he had lost some feeling in his fingers.

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Injury update: Tom Lehman didn’t hurt his right shoulder by falling off a carousel playing with his children, as was rumored. Lehman said he was doing handstands with his kids and he fell on his shoulder.

Lehman shot a 79 Friday and missed the cut at 150.

“Obviously, the shoulder was bothering me,” the 1996 British Open champion said. “I just didn’t feel right. I wasn’t even close to being 100%. There was a lot of tightness, stiffness and soreness.”

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Here’s a real shocker: The weather forecast for the weekend doesn’t look very good.

Winds of 20-25 mph are expected today and heavy rain is forecast for Sunday morning, turning to showers later, plus winds of 20-30 mph.

Tom Kite, who had a 69 in Friday’s breezes and is four shots off the lead, isn’t sure what’s going to happen and he doesn’t really care.

“I gave up trying to predict the weather here a long time ago,” he said.