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Your support makes all the difference.AFTER shooting 76 in the first round of the Players' Championship last year John Daly went on a 14-hour binge that put him in hospital. He woke up strapped to a bed with intravenous drips plugged in his forearms. The faces Daly saw were those of his agent, his caddie and his best friend. "I could see from their eyes how pitiful I must have looked," he said.
By the time of the Masters two weeks' later Daly was a patient at the Betty Ford Clinic in California. "I needed help," he added. "I needed to understand more about the disease I had. Why I can't drink, why it will kill me."
Since coming out of nowhere to win the USPGA championship in 1991 the longest hitter in golf has trashed hotel rooms, been arrested for assaulting his second wife and ordered off a plane for insulting a stewardess. Once served divorce papers at the Masters, he has stormed out of tournaments and been suspended from the US Tour.
Winning the Open championship at St Andrews in 1995 only delayed Daly's plunge towards oblivion. Then the nightmare and subsequently membership of Alcoholics Anonymous. Daly has not drunk since and has - in his own words - come from being a walking drunk to a walking miracle, off to the best start to any season of his career, ranking 20th on the money lists with $283,000 (pounds 176,000) in earnings.
This week people are speaking more about Daly's golf than the condition that almost destroyed him. "I can't get away from what I was but it doesn't hurt me," he said. "Anyway, it's a day-to-day thing and I can't let up. Hearing other people's problems helps me. It used to be much worse than just playing with a hangover. I would go to the first tee in all different sorts of ways - sometimes so bombed I wasn't always sure where I was playing. You name it, I've done it. I've played some great golf when I was drunk. I'm not going to lie about it - I felt like I could make anything. Didn't matter if I was hitting a driver into a par four, I felt I could hole it when I was drunk."
Then there were the days when Daly could not do anything, when the demons took over. Sobriety, he says, is just trying to stay sober. "Some days it's great, and some days it's not. People keep telling me that the longer you go the easier it will get. They say you will live a happy, joyous, free life. But I know that's not always the case. I have a chance now, on a daily basis. I'm giving myself that freedom to have a chance to live a life like that. I've never done it before."
Leading the US Tour in driving and putting Daly is carrying a lot of confidence into this week's Masters. "I've always gone into Augusta kind of wondering how I would play, but at the moment I feel good about my game," he added.
One thing that stands out pleasantly in Daly's play is his patience. Fellow professionals think it to be the most significant change in him. Same clout off the tee, fewer mood swings and a lot more control. "I think the fans relate to him," Brad Faxon said recently. "A lot of people have learned what he's been through and he's more of a nine-to-five guy than most of the golfers out here. People like rooting for guys like John."
If patience is helping to turn Daly's game around, it is his power that draws galleries. Time was when power invariably got the better of him. At one Open he responded to a forecast of strong winds off the North Sea with the thought that most of his drives on the morrow would end up in the next county. "It's just the way I play," Daly said.
Even when his head was clear it was in Daly's nature to play irresponsibly, going for the big shot when caution was advisable. The USPGA victory in 1991 was looked on in some quarters as one of those things that occasionally happen in sport, the view being that Daly would soon be back where he came from. Jack Nicklaus had a different point of view. "I admire this guy's boldness," golf's greatest achiever said. "He could be good for the game."
Coming out of the mist, Daly strummed his guitar and wrote a song, "This Is My Life": "I'm a country boy from a small town, love you people that follow me around. I'd lost the passion for my career, I pray to God that I don't drink one single beer... This is my life, let it be known, this is my life, through the years I have grown, and God don't give up on me. This is my life".
In proving that he has not given up on himself has persuaded many, including the golf guru David Leadbetter and former touring professional Andy North, that he can win at Augusta. "Because there isn't any rough and he's putting so well, Daly's power will be a big advantage," North said. "As long as he can remain patient I think he's up there this week with Tiger Woods and Ernie Els."
For Daly the game is the message stitched to his golf bag: God. Serenity. Courage. Wisdom.
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