The clock on the Royal and Ancient clubhouse had just passed 11am when John Daly smacked a tee shot down the 1st fairway to swells of applause. Biblical rains had delayed his start by nearly three and a half hours but the sun was out, the breeze was faint, the conditions ideal for golf’s most enduring curiosity to extend his stay at a tournament that represents his finest hour.
He went out in 33 in Thursday’s first round, dropping as low as four under after a birdie on the 10th, and the buzz around the grounds was palpable. Only more so back in America, where the only thing that comes close to matching Tiger Woods for interest among casual fans is a Daly run at a major. He had inevitably cooled on the back nine but entered Friday’s second round one under for the championship and a reasonable threat to make the cut.
Twenty years ago, Daly stunned the world by capturing the Open here on the Old Course, four years after bursting from obscurity to win the US PGA Championship as the ninth and final alternate. Since then, he has failed to finish higher at a major than a tie for 15th at the Open in 2005, also at St Andrews. He has not played the Masters since 2006 or the US Open since 2005. He depends almost exclusively on sponsor exemptions to sustain his chosen profession.
Yet there’s something about this crowded subway car of a course where the greens bleed together like watercolours that inspires something in Daly. “I just love this place,” he said after Thursday’s 70, which placed him in a tie for 41st and six shots off the lead. “I know where everything is. I’ve got every green in my mind.”
Even at 49, Daly still averages more than 300 yards off the tee. He spent Friday’s round crushing prodigious drives into the grey with a Taylormade R15, frequently making a mockery of the fairway bunkers.
He showed flashes of clever shot-making but failed to put together the sequences of two or three shots necessary to make headway on these cruel links. If it was a drive that went awry – like when his tee shot on the 5th drifted into the heather – he would uncork a wondrous pitch to save par. Same for a tee shot on the 6th that drifted behind a gnarly shrub: Daly stepped up and calmly dumped it on to the green to rousing applause from the gallery, sucking down a cigarette on the walk to the next tee.
Daly’s game has always been as wildly inconsistent as Friday’s conditions, which fluctuated between sun-splashed calm and overcast with howling winds, sometimes on the same hole. From a mechanics standpoint, there is still far too much action in his approach shots, too many things that can go wrong. What remained was a day of near misses: Daly was left with tap-ins for par after missing birdie putts by centimetres on the 1st, 5th, 14th and 15th.
Off the course he remains a walking contradiction, a world class athlete who looks like he just came from the pub. He makes sartorial choices that would make Titus Andromedon blush. He’s off the drink and has had lapband surgery. He’ll soon be married for a fifth time, having proposed to his caddie and longtime girlfriend Anna Cladakis in December. He once wore endorsements for Dunkin’ Donuts on one sleeve and Slim-Fast weight loss products on the other. Uninvited for nearly a decade to the Masters – a tournament that in fact is conducive to his strengths – he hawks merchandise from an RV in a Hooters parking lot within shouting distance of Augusta National.
He remains a novelty act and sideshow to some, a cult hero and iconoclast to others. At odds with an at-times grotesque image – who can forget his shirtless interview on regional television to promote a Missouri golf course in 2008 – is a behind-the-scenes largesse that has made him a populist hero. “The stories of his generosity to the people are legendary,” David Feherty said in 2009. “The only person he has ever been unkind to is himself.”
And the golf autodidact famous for such bon mots as “I don’t work out, I put out” and “I believe nicotine plus caffeine equals protein” has attracted people to the sport that might otherwise have never watched a swing.
Daly was stepping on to the 16th at one over for the day and level par for the championship when news spread the cut line was likely to fall at one under. He then sprayed a drive into a small patch of rough and could not save par, followed by a second straight bogey on the Road Hole when a putt to save par stopped inches short.
By the time he walked up the 18th fairway, firing one final fag before crossing the Swilcan Bridge, the loudest swells of the day rang down from the grandstand. “C’mon John!” cried one. “Love you JD!” another. While Daly’s approach shot was overcooked, he canned his longest putt of the day to finish with a birdie.
A sport needs personalities, which is why it’s too bad Daly will probably come just short of the cut. Major championship golf is better off with him in it.
