John Daly once threw $55,000 over a bridge just to prove a point

Published Dec. 19, 2016 11:01 a.m. ET

Pete Blackburn

Ridiculous stories surrounding the antics of golfer John Daly are one of the sports world's greatest treasures. There are plenty of them, and each seem to be more preposterous than the last.

It's a big reason why he was the subject of his own '30 for 30' last month, becoming the first golfer to be profiled in the documentary series. But if you thought that all of his wild tales were covered in that special -- titled "Hit It Hard" -- you would be incorrect.

In fact, Daly went on the The Dan Le Batard Show and told a story that would be hard to believe if it came out of the mouth of anyone else. But for Daly? It seems pretty much par for the course, if you will.

Daly told Le Batard about the time he dumped more than $50,000 in cash over a bridge simply because his then-wife Sherri was annoying him.

“I won like $55,000 in the casino and I said (to Sherri), if you’re going to yell and scream at me about this, I threw it over the bridge going over to Memphis from Arkansas. I threw all the money out the (car) window and said, ‘You know what, if you want that money, you can go find it. But let me tell you something, you don’t have a job. You’re not working. I’m supporting you, I’m paying all the bills.’

“My buddy (then) took her to a McDonald’s drive-thru and got her two cheeseburgers and some french fries and a soda, and (it was like), ‘OK, this is how you can live from now on if that’s the way you want it.’ ”

As absurd as it sounds, it's a story that happens to be corroborated by Sherri in her own book, Teed Off: My Life as a Player’s Wife on the PGA Tour, released in 2011. According to Sherri, Daly did indeed throw the $55,000 out the window, but she says she went back to the scene and spent hours recovering most of the loose cash.

If you couldn't already tell, Daly hasn't been terribly careful with his money over the course of his career. The golfer claims to have lost over $50 million while gambling, one time dropping $1.65 million in just five hours in Las Vegas immediately after winning $750,000 at a WGC event in San Francisco. Sherri is also his fourth ex-wife, and those divorce costs can pile up.

When Golfweek talked to Daly about his slew of marriages -- he's currently engaged to be married a fifth time -- and asked if he had problems finding the right woman, his response was an all-timer.

“No, I’m like Jesus. My problem is I love ’em all.”