“Drinking is in my blood. It was golf and drinking, or not golf and not drinking. I don’t want to stop drinking and I made the decision to continue playing golf. I just don’t want to get drunk. This was my talent,” said John Daly. in an AP interview years ago. The 56-year-old Californian has two major titles to his credit (PGA Championship in 1991 and the British Open in 1995) and if alcohol were not part of his daily life (he himself has acknowledged on multiple occasions that he was an alcoholic and a gambler) his immense talent with the sticks surely would have brought him countless more victories…or not.
Daly has been involved in all kinds of problems, due to his drinking problems and his strong and controversial character, on a golf course: has been ejected for assaulting a fan, for insulting a marshal, has left the field before finishing, has not arrived to play at the scheduled time, withdrawals and returns, has appeared in doubtful conditions to practice sports, has signed autographs fans in a drunken state, he has received all kinds of sanctions… He is a different athlete and at the PGA Championship in Tusla 2022 he opened the field on the opening day with his curious appearance: long hair and bushy white beard in the Bigfoot style, with obvious excess weight, with skull and multi-colored pants, perennial sunglasses on his face, behind the wheel of a buggy… and an enormous talent for golf .
Daly, with his son, at a tournament in 2022.
The North American, who even has a famous alcoholic cocktail that bears his name, completed the first day in Southern Hills, after more than five hours of play, with 72 strokes (+2) after three birdies and five bogeys (the last three in the final three holes of the course).
