Daly's disqualification at Bay Hill compounds his recent problems

A few days ago I posted a blog making a case for why John Daly in fact deserved all the sponsors exemptions he's been receiving. Turns out to be terrible timing on my part.

Let's start at the beginning of what has been a downward spiral for Daly over the past week.

Thursday - First Round PODS Championship
Playing on yet another sponsors exemption, Daly spent a 2 1-2 hour rain delay in a Hooters corporate tent behind the 17th green at Innisbrook doing god knows what. At 3-over-par, he emerged to resume play with Tampa Bay Buccaneer's head coach John Gruden as his caddie. Gruden stayed with Daly for the remainder of the round. Perhaps Gruden has Daly confused with Warren Sapp, who Daly is resembling these days from the belt-buckle to the neckline. Daly ended up with a 77.

Friday - Seconod Round PODS Championship
Daly shoots an 80 to finish at 16-over-par and miss the cut.

Saturday - PODS Championship
Daly spent the day at the "Hooter's Owls Nest" located on the tournament grounds chugging beers with fans, posing for pictures and autographing a woman's backside. She was clothed at least. To make matters worse, the events were documented by a local news reporter and documented in an online photo gallery.

Tuesday - Arnold Palmer Invitational
After learning of Daly's behavior over the weekend at PODS Butch Harmon, one of golf's most renowned swing coaches, said he was done working with Daly because the two time major champion appeared more interested in drinking than working on his game.

Wednesday - Arnold Palmer Invitational
To top it all off, Daly missed his pro-am time Wednesday at the Arnold Palmer Invitational and was disqualified from the tournament. He told tournament officials he thought his tee time was 9:47 a.m. instead of 8:40 a.m. According to a rules official, Daly had called Bay Hill to ask for his tee time and was told 9:47, which was his starting time for Thursday's round. He was on his way ot the golf course when he found out he would not be playing.

At around the same time all this was taking place, PGA TOUR commissioner Tim Finchem was answering questions for the media with Arnold Palmer. Finchem wouldn't address anything specifically about the event in the Hootes beer garden last week at the PODS Championship in Palm Harbor but did comment on Daly.

"It is on the one hand something that makes him very endearing to fans, because he is perhaps the ultimate come-from-behind, blue-collar, upstart kind of situation with all of these challenges," Finchem said.

"On the other hand, we have certain conduct things we have to maintain, and we'll continue to try to do that," he added. "With respect to him, we've worked with John in the past and we'll continue to be available to work with him in the future regarding his issues, but we have to maintain certain standards of conduct and we will in every case. Now with respect to the specific incident that you raise, I am not fully briefed on the details, and we have not engaged John on that at this point in time, and we don't discuss it when we do. But we are available to work with him. We hope that he can deal with his issues in a way that allows him to play golf."

It looks as if this situation has finally and inevitably taken a turn for the worst. We can only hope Daly can recover from this incident and that it doesn't lead down a slippery slope that eventually deprives the Tour and the fans of his potential talents.

Comments

Add New Search

Write comment
Name:
Email:	do not notifynotify
Website:
Title:
UBBCode:	-color-aquablackbluefuchsiagraygreenlimemaroonnavyolivepurpleredsilvertealwhiteyellow -size-tinysmallmediumlargehuge
	Please input the anti-spam code that you can read in the image.