How golf’s ‘Wild Thing’ changed the face of the sport… as fate sealed an underdog’s triumph

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“It’s unbelievable. I’ve never seen anyone hit the ball like that,” Grady, who was edged out in a British Open playoff a couple of years earlier, said.

“I mean, it’s amazing. He’s hitting 8 and 9-irons into holes where we are hitting 2 and 3-irons.”

THE GAMBLING GOLFER

Long John Daly has always been an outlier, Fox Sports expert pundit and former professional Paul Gow said.

In a sport that increasingly professional, his love of Maccas and bourbon, benders and cigarettes was at odds with the athletic physiques of stars of the sport including Greg Norman and Tiger Woods.

“He’s been great for golf, because people love him,” Gow told foxsports.com.au.

“He’s quite the character. What you see is what you get. He’s just loose, and the majority of the time, golfers aren’t loose. They’re very regimented. They’re very structured in what they do.

“John Daly is the total opposite. He is unstructured. He’s just a different cat who just plays his own game and doesn’t care what anyone else is doing.”

Daly was before his time in terms of his length, with the American consistently averaging more than 300 yards (274.5 metres) off the tee years before anyone else.

There is certain to be chatter about the golf ball roll back leading into the PGA Championship at Aronimink this week given the elongated distances professionals are now producing.

But Daly was breaking barriers way back then, as evidenced by the remarkable triumph at Crooked Stick that thrust him from obscurity into the spotlight 35 years ago.

The Pete Dye-designed course was designed to ensure its hazards came into play, but just to make sure, the renowned architect took Norman for a round leading into the event.

Crooked Stick survived the Great White Shark’s bite. The Aussie could not clear the bunkers from the tee. Dye’s hazards were in play, or so it seemed until Daly arrived out of nowhere.

Well, almost out of nowhere, for it took a freakish run of luck and a big punt from the gambling golfer who ultimately blew millions upon millions off the course for Daly to get a start in the first place.

It is folklore as to how Daly, who had played largely on the secondary tours around the US after dropping out of college following rows with his golf coaches, clinched a tee time in the PGA Championship.

A week out from the major, he was the ninth alternate and was passing the time at his home in Memphis while keeping tabs of the entry list, mindful he might need to make a quick move if fortune fell his way.

As reported by Golf Monthly a couple of years ago, Mark James was the first to pull out back in Europe when preferring to stay at home to push for a spot in the Ryder Cup.

The legend Lee Trevino pulled out with exhaustion. Brad Faxon secured an exemption, so his spot went to Mark Wiebe. Then Gizzy Gilbert fell sick with an inner-ear infection.

When Paul Azinger opted against testing a shoulder that had undergone surgery, Daly thought maybe. And the withdrawals kept coming.

About 5pm on the eve of the major, he rolled the dice, packed his car and headed off on an eight-hour road trip to Indiana.

At worst, he thought, he might grab a drink or two with Fuzzy Zoeller, the dual-major champion who died late last year, in Carmel.

But there was a flashing light on the phone when he arrived at his hotel well after midnight. The message was succinct. He was in. And the strokes of luck continued, for his tee time was not until early afternoon.

More used to getting home at dawn than teeing off, Daly said later he was happy to be able to grab some sleep before his PGA Championship debut.

A BIBLICAL TALE

The dice kept falling for Daly who, remarkably, had never seen the course when he hit off shortly before 1pm for what was just his third appearance in a major after two starts in the US Open in the late 1980s.

Nick Price had been one of the withdrawals courtesy of the arrival of his first child and that left his caddie Jeff “Squeaky” Medlin without a gig until the arrival of the Arkansas bolter.

Medlin had left nothing to chance, just in case. And Daly revelled under his guidance. As one of his playing partners recalled, every time Daly went to tee off, his caddie would tell him; “Just kill it”.

His form was not too shabby. A couple of weeks earlier, he had finished third in the Chattanooga Classic and had pocketed about $200,000 leading into the major in what was his best season to date as a golfer.

And it all just clicked. Playing Crooked Stick sight unseen on Thursday on a wild and wooly day, he managed to shoot a 69 to trail leader Kenny Knox by two shots.

By the weekend it was clear a story was unfolding as he shot 67. Bruce Lietzke, who ultimately finished runner-up, pointed out a sign in the crown as Daly shot 69 on Saturday.

“There was a guy out there holding a sign showing ‘John 3:16’,” he said, as quoted by Golf Monthly.

“One of the journalists wrote that he didn’t know if he was making a religious statement or giving Daly’s driving average.”

Daly was booming the ball over Dye’s bunkers and taking the angles out of his dog legs by driving over the corners. He could attack with wedges while his rivals had to hit long irons.

He had a lead heading into the last day but there was no change to a formula that, at times, clearly served him well while also resulting in dysfunction at different stages in his life.

Rather than resting up in his hotel room prior to the biggest round of his life, Daly headed off to watch Indiana play Seattle at the Hoosier Dome and got a bigger cheer than the Colts when he was shown on screen.

Daly, who had shown talent in gridiron at school, had his feast of football and returned to close out the PGA Championship the next day after a nervous start.

Despite a mistake on the first and later on the 17th, he was able to birdie the 2nd, 5th, 13th and 15th, which gave him a big enough buffer to hold off the charging Lietzke.

The top six was full of longshots, but make no mistake. This was considered one of the strongest PGA Championship fields in many years. Yet Daly had bombed them all.

The par 5s offered proof as to what had set him apart. Then aged 25, he finished at 12-under for the tournament, which coincided with his score for the par 5s that week.

The implications – he doubled his earnings for the year with the winning purse and earned all manner of exemptions including life-time entry into the PGA Championship – stunned him.

“You’re kidding. I just came here to play and try to make the cut,” he said.

A SINNER OR SAINT?

Daly was far from a one-hit wonder, even if his controversies overshadowed the number of titles he won. He could well have proven a generational talent if not for his struggles.

It is now 31 years since his most famous triumph, with the American claiming The British Open at St Andrews when defeating Constantino Rocca in a playoff. A photograph taken shortly after his win still circulates on line, for good reason.

He was a five-time winner on the PGA Tour and clinched triumphs in South Africa and Asia, among other successes. His best was brilliant. But his worst? Oh boy. He could be bad.

Alcohol has been a curse that he has wrestled with since he was a kid. Gambling, too, has gripped him at times. And marriages and lawsuits? Well, how much time do you have?

The on-course blowups are legendary and run in the dozens.

Daly made a cameo in Happy Gilmore 2 this year but sparked a real life version of the biffo the Adam Sandler-character engaged in during the first flick when, in 1994, the dad of John Roth started frothing when the long-hitter kept bombing the golfer playing a hole ahead.

At the Bay Hill Invitational in 1998, he shot an 18 on the par 5 sixth hole when repeatedly finding the water. And Australia has not been immune to his missteps either.

At the PGA Championship in 2002, he was disqualified for failing to sign his scorecard after throwing his putter into a pond. Six years later he smashed a fan’s camera at Royal Sydney.

Then, in the 2011 Australian Open, Daly failed to complete the first round after hitting all of his golf balls in the water on the 11th hole.

Understandably, not everyone is a fan.

Stuart Appleby, who grew up in Cohuna and was a nine-time winner on the PGA Tour, lashed Australian Masters organisers for inviting Daly downunder back in 2008.

“He is a walking train wreck and I guess people turn their heads to watch the train wreck,” he said.

“It’s symptomatic of world golf because he still runs around the world. He’s in Europe. He’s in Asia. He’s in Australia. It’s not like we’re desperate. Everybody’s doing the same thing.

“John Daly is unique. We only wish that, as players, we wish he’d put a little more time into his game instead of ruining his personal life. He would be a draw card, not just a freak show. I don’t think he is here because of his world ranking.”

Grady, who was dazzled all those years prior at Crooked Stick, was among those to defend Daly at a time his game was in severe decline.

“People love to watch him play. He’s exciting to watch. Anything can happen. Hopefully it’s the start of his road back to playing well because he’s not that old,” he said.

And there is one family that swears by Daly and his generosity dating back to that breakthrough triumph in 1991.

Remember the wild and wooly weather on the opening day? In a tragedy, a lightning strike killed a fan named Tom Weaver, who left behind his wife Dee and daughters Karen and Emily.

In response Daly donated almost 15 per cent of his winners cheque of $230,000 to a trust fund for the girls, though he opted against making a big deal of it at the time but later met up with them while they were at college.

“John Daly is a saint,” Emily told Links Magazine.

The Rock Star of Golf

Daly, who underwent lapband surgery a year later, still plays occasionally on the PGA Seniors Tour and snared a success in the Insperity Invitational back in 2017.

And the broader appeal of the everyman, as chronicled by Indianapolis Star columnist Wayne Fuser when covering his miracle on grass at Crooked Stick in 1991, remains intact.

“John Daly is different,” he wrote at the time.

“He’s the kind of kid gray-haired groupies want to adopt, the kind of a guy younger gals in the gallery want to take home for their own, and he’s the kind of buddy guys down at the neighbourhood watering hole would want to join for a few brewskies.”

Daly is no longer a threat as a golfer and it will be a miracle if he makes the cut having failed to do so in a major since 2012. Of his 30 PGA Championships appearances, he has made the weekend just seven times.

But the fascination holds and the Wild Thing remains a draw card.

As Gow said this week, every year at Augusta he drives past a merchandise tent run by Daly and marvels at a queue stretching around the block for their turn.

“He’s an interesting fella. Nothing’s changed about John Daly. He just looks like the rock star of golf, just like when he first came on to the PGA scene,” Gow told foxsports.com.au

“He’s at the Masters every year, even though he hasn’t played in 20 years. His beloved Hooters got closed down and isn’t there anymore, but he just moved across the road and set up shop there. And every day I drive by, there are fans lined up by the hour to buy merch from him, and he’s there signing stuff and doing his thing.

“And he’s a man of the people, John Daly, a man of the people. He’s loved. And to think back 35 years, that’s what it was, it’s really quite amazing.”