The fans were checking out the hats, T-shirts, towels and golf flags covering the folding tables, but what they’d really come to see was still inside the oversized RV parked across the street from Augusta National.
“Where’s John today?” one asked. “Recovering?”
Considering John is John Daly, the question wasn’t unreasonable.
Daly was one of the most entertaining golfers in the world, winning two majors with his booming drives and go-for-broke style.
He was also a hard-drinking, hard-living, train-wreck-waiting-to-happen kind of guy, and you never knew which one you were going to get.
Only a few weeks from the end of his six-month suspension from the US PGA Tour and slimmer than he’s been in years after surgery to shrink his stomach, Daly is kicking off what could be called his comeback tour at the Masters. The money he makes from selling his merchandise — cash only, please — will help him stave off bankruptcy. The 19kg he’s lost in the last eight weeks will help his prodigious game get back under control.
But it’s the reaction from the fans that seems to matter most.
It’s been more than five years since he won a tournament, two since he was a factor with any consistency. He’s fallen so far his No. 783 world ranking trails some guy from that golfing hotbed of Norway.
That Daly is spectacularly talented was never a question.
But his two trips to alcohol rehab, four marriages, gambling losses and other off-the-course episodes have made him a carnival act to some and a cult figure to others. He doesn’t have any sponsors for the first time in 17 years, and is “pretty close” to declaring bankruptcy. He made millions in endorsements over the years, but said he loaned a lot of people a lot of money.
After a series of incidents last season, including police in North Carolina throwing him in jail to sober up, the US PGA Tour gave him the six-month timeout.
He hopes to be back on the US PGA Tour in time for the Colonial, which is May 28 to May 31.
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