My Life in and out of the Rough

by John Daly

  Looking back, I must have sounded like some sorry, whiny, pitiful, mully-grubbing sonofabitch, and I guess I was. I mean, I’d been through worse stretches before, (and God knows, I would go through worse stretches after), and I hadn’t gone crying on anybody’s shoulder. It wasn’t my style. My style was just to get drunk and beat the shit out of something.

  Anyway, I tell Dandy all this, and he just sits there, taking it all in. He doesn’t say anything at first, and then finally he looks me in the eye and he says, “John, there’s nothing else in the world you’d rather do with your life than play golf, am I right?” (I nod.) “Then get your butt back out there and play golf. You’re a professional golfer, John. Go play golf.”

  I don’t know what I’d expected Dandy to say, but I do know that what he did say was exactly the right thing. I got my butt back out there. I played good in Amarillo, not so good a couple of other places. And then I drove all the way up to Utah and won the damned tournament and a check for $20,000, my biggest payday since I turned pro in 1987.

  Thank you, Dandy. You’ve heard me say those words before, but I can never say them enough for what you’ve done for me over the years.

  For me, 1990 was what you might call a pivotal year. I won twice on the Sunshine Tour in South Africa. I got divorced. I wrecked my first hotel room. I met the woman who would become the second Mrs. John Daly. (You’ll meet her in Chapter 7.) I managed to survive another trip to an ER to be treated for alcohol poisoning (this time in Falmouth, Maine). I almost quit golf. I won a Hogan Tour tournament. I finished high enough on the Hogan Tour money list to earn to the final stage of the 1990 Q-School.

  Oh, and did I mention that I made the cut at Q-School and earned my PGA Tour card for 1991?

  Yes! Finally!

  Q-School, as far as I’m concerned, ought to be considered the fifth major. So many good golfers, so much pressure, so much riding on the outcome. And it’s not just a bunch of wide-eyed kids chasing a dream, like I was in 1990 (and 1989 and 1988 and 1987). Last year, Larry Mize had to go to Q-School. Yeah, that Larry Mize, the 1987 Masters champion. He didn’t make the final cut, so in 2006 his status on the PGA Tour will be Past Champion, which is at the bottom of the barrel in terms of getting into events. He’ll also get some sponsors’ exemptions, because he’s a great guy and a former Masters champion. But a lot of other really good golfers, guys who’ve been on the Tour before but lost their cards, didn’t make the cut either, and they’ll spend the year scrambling hard.

  Hell, if I don’t have a good year in 2006, I could be back in Q-School next fall.

  And I’ve already told you how much I hated school.

  My first PGA Tour event as an official, bona fide, card-carrying member of the PGA Tour was the Northern Telecom Open in Tucson in the second week of January 1991. By then I’d played in a handful of Tour events, of course, and I’d even won some money. But this was the first time I felt like I belonged, not like I was some side order of vegetables that nobody ordered. Problem is, I played like shit: 73, 79—cut.

  Oh, the guy who won that tournament? Some gangly college kid from Arizona State, the last amateur to win an official PGA Tour event. You’ve probably heard of him: a lefty swinger from California named Phil Mickelson.

  The first cut I made as a member of the PGA Tour—shit, I still remember how it felt saying those last five words back then—came at my second tournament, two weeks later, at the United Hawaiian Open. I shot 66, 72, 72 in the first three rounds and was all set to go low on Sunday and crack the top 20, but then I went out and shot myself in the foot with a 77. Still, while T-69 wasn’t anything to write home about, it was the first cut I made as a member of the PGA Tour.

  The next four tournaments were up and down—two missed cuts, a T-60, and a T-20 (at Pebble Beach, of all places, where I’ve since had a pretty ugly history). Then it was all the way back across the country to Florida and the Honda Classic.

  Honda was my breakout tournament. After Honda, I knew I belonged out there, and all of a sudden so did a lot of other people. I shot 68, 68, 76, 71 to finish at T-4. Man, except for that 76, I would have been this close to my first PGA Tour win.

  The only downside is that a win there in Florida would have taken a lot of the surprise out of what took place the following August up in Indiana.

  FOUR

  A LONG, LONG WAY…

  There’s an old country song that goes “It’s a long, long way to the top of the world/But it’s only a short fall back down.” Well, in the three years after I won the 1991 PGA, I found out how short that fall was. And how painful.

  At first, everything was great. The cash poured in like a cow pissing on a flat rock. All of a sudden, I was being offered tons of money to show up for Monday and Tuesday corporate outings and fund-raisers. I was getting paid $25,000, $50,000, $75,000 a pop to hang with golf lovers for half a day. Shit, I was in hog heaven.

  To put it in perspective, the first-ever corporate outing I did was earlier that year after I finished T-4 at Honda. I guess word had gotten around about this big redneck rookie who could hit the ball a long ways, and some outfit up in Syracuse, New York, asked me to come up to their event. I was paid $1,500.

  Funny what winning a major can do for a pro golfer’s market value.

  Best of all was getting into all the big-money events at the end of the year. They call it the Silly Season, but they ought to call it the Money Season. It starts, really, with the Tour Championship, the last official PGA Tour tournament of the year. The field is limited to the top 30 finishers on the money list. In 2005, last place in the Tour Championship paid $105,300. Finish first in 2006 and you’ll haul away $1,170,000. In 1991, I finished third and picked up a cool $138,000.

  But I was only just getting warmed up. I went to Australia for a big appearance fee. Then I came home and won $128,000 and two new cars in the Skins Game playing with Jack Nicklaus, Curtis Strange, and Payne Stewart. I played in Japan at the Dunlop Phoenix, which is a big tournament over there. Then, in December, I went off to South Africa for the Million Dollar Golf Challenge in Sun City. (Got a big appearance fee, finished eighth, lost about $150,000 at the casino, got hammered, trashed my hotel room.) And then there were the corporate outings: Monday here, Tuesday there—more big checks, like found money.

  Overnight, I was the hottest property in golf.

  Best of all were the sponsorship deals. I had signed with Ping when I came on the tour in 1991. Ping had a point system—you didn’t get guaranteed money, but you got points for how well you played using the company’s gear. For example, I made $230,000 for winning with the PGA—and that was great money, don’t get me wrong—but I made another $236,000 in 1991 just for playing with Ping clubs and wearing a Ping shirt and a Ping hat. And that was only the beginning.

  Early in 1992, I signed my first really big sponsorship contract, a 10-year deal with Wilson that paid me millions of dollars a year. There were bonuses for wins, top 10 finishes, cuts made, appearances, and other stuff. At the time it was made, it was probably the biggest golf equipment sponsorship deal ever. Not bad for a guy who, 18 months earlier, had been hacking away on the Hogan Tour, trying to cover expenses.

  Mainly, in the 18 months or so after Crooked Stick, I was just enjoying life. All of the stuff I used to worry about, like finding the closest Motel 6 or Red Roof Inn to the tournament I was playing in that week, was history. All of a sudden it was, hey, Mr. Daly, if you stay at such and such swank hotel this week, we’ll give you the room free. Shit like that blew my mind.

  Another great thing about the PGA Tour—I don’t know about the other guys, but I didn’t realize this until I got out there in 1991—is you get a free courtesy car each week. And you get free food at the tournament. And you get all this free stuff in your locker—golf balls, gloves, shirts, gifts from the tournament sponsors, offers to give clinics, all sorts of goodies you couldn’t imagine. The first time I ate in a clubhouse at a tournament, I asked for my check and the waiter said, “Oh, no, Mr
. Daly. You’re fine. No check.” All you had to do was leave a tip.

  As a rookie, getting free food was maybe the coolest thing. Shit, I’d been playing the minitours for two years and the Hogan for one and no matter where you went, you paid. Play golf and all you can eat free? I still get excited just thinking about it.

  The money was coming from everywhere. My agents lined it up, and we went for it. We had to go for it. I mean, shit, it was like the golden egg. It just fell in my lap and I said, hell, I’m going to take advantage of all of it. Who knew if it would last? I’d always wanted to see other parts of the country and the world anyhow. Bring it on! Bring it all on!

  Australia was my first big trip overseas as PGA Champion. It’s a beautiful, beautiful country. I loved the people. But the golf courses there bit me in the ass—hard. The first tournament I played Down Under was the Australian Masters, and back then all I knew how to do was just hit driver. But if you miss the fairway on most Australian courses, you’re dead meat. You’re in the bush, all sticky thorns and shit. Hit in there and you might as well just re-tee. Even if you find your ball, you won’t be able take an unplayable because you won’t be able to find a place to drop.

  So that first time at the Australian Masters, I shot 81 in the second round and was disqualified for not signing my scorecard. I hit driver on every hole except the par 3s because I didn’t know any better—that’s just the way I had taught myself to play. No way I was going to make the cut, but I felt bad about the DQ because these people had paid me a lot of money to come down there and play. I was embarrassed. I got fined by the PGA Tour for the DQ: my first fine, but—Lord help me—not my last.

  Pretty much since the PGA win, fans everywhere wanted one thing: to see me hit driver. I’d step up to a tee and they’d all be yelling, “Kill it, John! Grip it and rip it!” Like a big idiot, I listened to them and pulled out my driver even when I knew better—and ended up making a lot of big numbers all through 1992. I did shoot 18 under to win the B.C. Open that year, which was a big relief because, okay, now the monkey’s off my back, I’m not just a one-win wonder.

  The first four majors I entered as the winner of a major myself were something special. Not for the golf I played, which mostly sucked, but because I got to hear my name being announced on the first tee: “John Daly, 1991 PGA Champion.” I couldn’t get enough of that.

  The thing that surprised me most about Augusta National, seeing it the first time, was how hilly it is. If you’ve only seen it on TV, you don’t have any idea how up and down the place is. And you used not to get to see the front nine on TV at all.

  I finished T-19 in my first Masters at five under, with a 68 on the final round. I was pretty happy about that. I felt like I could have scored better, but that 68 on Sunday got me feeling that Augusta was a course I was going to master someday. A lot of other people thought so, too. I still love it, even if it hasn’t quite worked out that way—yet.

  The U.S. Open in 1992 was my second as a pro, my third overall. My first Open, back when I was a sophomore at Arkansas, I didn’t come close to making the cut at Shinnecock Hills. The second time, at Oak Hill in Rochester, I made the cut but finished in the back of the pack, at T-69. This time, at Pebble Beach, I went 74-75—cut.

  The British Open that year was at Muirfield, one tough-ass golf course. Tough but fair. I drained a 20-foot par putt on the 18th hole of the second round to make the cut right on the nose. Then it was 80-75 on the weekend, and…what time does our plane leave?

  Naturally, I wanted to play good at the PGA as the defending champion. This year it was at Bellerive Country Club in St. Louis. Instead, 76-72-79-77. From 1st to 82nd. I wasn’t too happy. But hey, it is what it is.

  Basically, my golf game in 1992 played second fiddle to making money—at outings, from appearance fees, from sponsorships—and partying. Instead of partying, I guess I ought to just say drinking, which is what it was. For the first time in my life, I let my golf game slide. That whole year, I don’t think I practiced more than two days in a row. And it showed. Sure, I won the B.C. Open in late September, but I missed 10 cuts in 25 tournaments.

  You can’t do much on the PGA Tour if you spend too many Saturday mornings watching cartoons.

  Like I said, I was drinking a lot. It wasn’t like in college or in South Africa or on the minitours. It wasn’t a fifth a day, not close. In 1992, if I was playing decent, it was like, hey, I’ve got to be sharp tomorrow. But if I missed a cut or had a blow-up round on Saturday or Sunday, it was like, hey, let’s see how fast I can get shit-faced. I drank mostly when I was mad at myself for the way I was playing.

  And in 1992 and 1993, that was most of the time.

  Some people said and wrote at the time that John Daly, he must be depressed. Well, I don’t remember feeling sad all the time, even when things got rough. That’s being depressed, right? Being sad all the time? I laughed a lot. Still do. I got along with people. Still do. I don’t remember sitting around thinking about my troubles. Angry? You bet your ass. I’m angry a lot. Sometimes I feel like I’m gonna bust, I get so pissed off. Times like that, I sometimes take it out on walls and TV sets and cars.

  But I don’t see that as being depressed or sad.

  I see it as being mad.

  Despite all the money that was pouring in and my win at the B.C. Open, what made 1992 such a downer was that horseshit, blown-out-of-proportion thing in Colorado when, right before Christmas, I destroyed my house and got accused (and convicted, at least in the press) of domestic abuse.

  My guess is you probably heard about it or read about it, maybe back then, or more likely in some of the million newspapers and magazines that have dredged it up in just about every article or feature story written about me since. But I guaran-damn-tee you’ve never heard the entire, completely true story, because I’ve never had a real chance to tell it before now. Actually, I have told it before, to a bunch of sportswriters, but it’s always come out in bits and pieces, all twisted and screwed up.

  So here’s what really happened. It’s not pretty, and I’m not proud of it, but it is what it is, and not what they said it was at the time.

  Let me tee it up for you.

  In August 1992, after the International in Castle Pines, Colorado, I bought a new house right next to the golf course. It was an impulse buy, no doubt about it. I didn’t exactly think it through—I mean, living in a place where you can’t practice for four or five months a year is maybe not the most brilliant choice of residence a professional golfer could make. But I’d finished fifth in the tournament, and I was feeling pretty good after a bad stretch when I missed four straight cuts before stinking up the British and the PGA. Plus, I had all this money now, and I was hoping that me and Bettye and Shynah could make a fresh start in a new place. Me and Bettye had been having serious, serious troubles—I’ll get into all that shit in Chapter 7—and I told her, Baby, let’s just start over and try and make it work.

  Castle Pines is a drop-dead beautiful golf course in a beautiful part of a beautiful state. And the people who own it, the Vickers family, are really beautiful people. Plus, I’d fallen in love the fall before with the Broncos and Denver coach Dan Reeves, the former Cowboy. Steve Atwater, who had played for Arkansas, was a defensive back for the Broncos. We were good buddies. The week of the tournament, I got to throw the ball around with John Elway a little bit. I went out to a Broncos practice and they let me kick field goals; Coach Reeves said if I made three straight 35-yarders, he’d cut practice short. I did, and the guys practically carried me off the field.

  New home, new part of the country, new football team to follow, new place to try to make my marriage work—that’s the way I saw Castle Pines. I even took a pass on some of the Silly Season events because I wanted to stay with Bettye and the baby in Castle Pines and try to patch things up.

  In four months, it all turned to shit.

  Fact is, and I should have realized this—things between me and Bettye were going downhill too fast for anything
to turn it around. We fought all that fall, about anything and everything. I’d pretty much had my fill of it, and I went back to Dardanelle to get away from her. Then Bettye called and said I should come on back so we could at least spend Shynah’s first Christmas together as a family. I said okay, fine, and me and Jamie and his girlfriend hauled ass back to Castle Pines.

  Big mistake.

  Well, we decided to have a Christmas party on December 19. We had a bunch of people over: Sean Pacetti, a guy I knew from the Hogan Tour; my old grade-school buddy, Donnie Crabtree, and his girlfriend; Dan Hampton, the great Chicago Bears defensive end and good friend of mine, and his fiancée, Julie—maybe a dozen people in all. It’s what you do before Christmas, right? You have a big party.

  Everybody’s having a good time—drinking, eating, dancing, listening to music, shooting pool, partying away. We’re all down in the rec room, and I’m dancing and sort of bumping with Julie a little bit, and Dan’s bumping with me, and we’re all just having a good time, when all of a sudden Bettye comes down and yells out, “Why don’t you just go fuck her?” And I go, “What are you talking about? Watch your mouth! She’s Dan’s fiancée!” But Bettye, she just keeps on yelling and cursing me and screaming at Julie that it’s her fucking house and she better not forget it, making everybody miserable. Dan and Julie go upstairs to get away from her, and then Bettye goes back up to her room.

  And I just lost it.

  What I did was, I destroyed my house. I punched through the poolroom walls. I kicked in a 57-inch TV set. I smashed up my trophy case. I wrecked my office. I ripped off the cupboard doors in the kitchen and threw all the pots and pans on the floor and smashed all the dishes and glasses. I just took the whole place apart.

  Now, Bettye had been upstairs the whole time I was doing this. Then she comes back down and yells at me to stop, and I yell at her to go fuck herself, and I walk past her and bump up against her, and I keep on demolishing the place. But I didn’t hit her. I did not hit her.