Daly Considers the Flight Risk

And you think you don’t like flying?

John Daly hates to fly domestic commercial airlines so much that he drives a bus from tournament to tournament. And when he can’t do that, Daly flies in a private jet.

He’s not scared of terrorists; he’s scared of the airplanes.

“I have always been afraid of them,” Daly said Friday. “Overseas, I feel OK. [On] private airplanes I’m a little better, but I just don’t trust, I just don’t like airlines that do everything just a little past the book on oil changes.”

There is a lot more that Daly doesn’t like.

“You get in the plane, it stinks. There is food everywhere. You get a little Diet Coke with half a plastic cup. Food [is bad]. I can’t stand it. And you can’t smoke. And you have to pay to go through all that misery.

“Don’t get me wrong. I’m just not a flier. I don’t believe, you know, you just pay for gas and you hope you get there.... And then you’ve got to wait two hours, get there two hours before and everything is going off [at security], especially when I go through that thing. I feel like a criminal going through the airport now.

“It’s just no fun. I know you want it to be safe and all to fly, but fix the plane for God’s sake.”

Daly’s bus is parked this week at Lakeside Country Club in Burbank and he commutes to Riviera. Daly has three 42-inch plasma television sets on the bus -- one up front and the others in his bedroom and near the barbecue area.

Daly said a friend, actor Joe Pesci, arranged the parking at Lakeside.

It is a simple life on the bus, he said.

“Today I’m going to go wash the bus. I’m going to get Pesci to help me to wash it. He owes me a favor. I let him do the lower part because he is not tall enough to do the top part.

“My life is pretty simple. It’s sleeping in my own bed every night, having all the TVs I need.”

Daly was able to break down the routine even more.

“I go to the bus, I eat.”

And he does not even have to fly.