Other golfers in the field for the 2018 Cologuard Classic are more accomplished than John Daly. None is more famous.
The co-director of the aptly titled “Hit It Hard,” the no-holds-barred 2016 ESPN “30 for 30” documentary about Daly’s life, explained it perfectly.
“Even if you didn’t love golf,” Gabe Spitzer says during the preamble to the film, “you knew who John Daly was.”
Daly was — and still is — the everyman of golf. He has battled alcohol and gambling addictions. He has been married multiple times. He smokes. He’s overweight. He has problems … as we all do.
“John’s John, and that’s why everybody loves him,” one of his ex-wives, Paulette, says during “Hit It Hard.”
Daly turned 50 on April 28, 2016, making him eligible for the PGA Tour Champions. He finished 22nd on the Charles Schwab Cup money list in 2017, winning the Insperity Invitational one year after making his Champions Tour debut. He finished eighth in this month’s Chubb Classic. So clearly Daly still has game.
He is scheduled to make his first appearance in the Cologuard Classic, which starts Friday at Omni Tucson National Resort. Here are five things you might or might not know about Daly:
1. Daly has won two major championships. Daly came out of nowhere — he was literally the last man in the field — to win the 1991 PGA Championship. He had an extremely difficult time handling his sudden fame and fortune, so it was no less stunning when he won the Open Championship four years later. (He was ranked 93rd in the world after missing the cut in the previous event he played that year.)
The two majors account for 40 percent of Daly’s career victories on the PGA Tour. He has finished in the top 10 of a major only one other time — a tie for third in the 1993 Masters.
2. Daly has three children, and one of them is a golfer. Daly has two daughters, Shynah, 25, and Sierra, 22, and one son, John, 14. John II — often referred to as “Little John” — won the International Junior Golf Tour Invitational at Harbour Town in December. He made a hole-in-one at the Stacy Lewis All-Star Invitational last June as a 13-year-old.
Big John and Little John participated in the PNC Father Son Challenge late last year and finished in a tie for ninth. Little John has a long, powerful swing similar to his father’s. Asked by Jimmy Roberts on Golf Channel what advice he had for his son, Daly replied: “Just do the opposite of me, and you’re going to be fine.”
3. Daly has had a major gambling problem. Daly has battled various addictions for much of his life. It started with alcohol, which led to career, marital and legal troubles. He became friends with recovering addict Thomas “Hollywood” Henderson, the former NFL linebacker, who revealed in “Hit It Hard” that he once had to talk Daly out of killing himself.
Daly admitted to a gambling problem in his 2006 autobiography, “John Daly: My Life in and out of the Rough.” In “Hit It Hard,” he said he lost between $95 million and $98 million gambling, while winning between $40 million and $45 million.
4. Daly is as much a pitchman as he is a golfer. Daly lists 11 sponsors on his website, JohnDaly.com. They include: John Daly’s Grip It & Sip It, a line of alcoholic beverages that “pushes the envelope of flavor and personality”; John Daly Pizza, a pizza-making equipment system that includes an oven, utensils and training and marketing materials; and LoudMouth Golf, which makes the colorful clothing Daly wears on the course.
Daly made a hole-in-one at the Chubb Classic while wearing the “Flagadelic Men’s Pant.” He donned a similarly patriotic blazer while being interviewed during “Hit It Hard.”
5. Daly is a talented musician. Daly, who grew up in Arkansas, has released two country albums: “My Life” in 2002 and “I Only Know One Way” in 2010. The former includes guest vocal appearances by Darius Rucker, Willie Nelson and Johnny Lee. On the latter, Daly covers Bob Dylan’s “Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door.”
“Hit It Hard” is also the title of one of Daly’s songs, and the documentary of the same name ends with him singing it.
“I hit it hard, man. So far, man,” Daly croons. “No layin’ up, no holdin’ back. Ain’t afraid of nothin’, it’s a natural fact.
“I hit it long, man. Then it’s gone, man. I keep takin’ chances, livin’ large, I hit it, hit it, hit it hard.”
