John Daly’s in the running to win a tournament?
What a country.
For five years, Daly’s been golf’s equivalent of your freeloading cousin.
Since 2006, he’s been relying on sponsors’ exemptions — essentially free rides — because he hasn’t held a tour card and refuses to try to earn one at Q-school.
He seems to think winning two majors means he shouldn’t have to slum it at Q-school with the bottom feeders.
Daly keeps getting invited to play because tournament directors think fans identify with a life that sticks so faithfully to the lyrics of a bad, sad country and western song.
This is a man, after all, who once introduced a woman as his “future ex-wife.” What’s worse is that he turned out to be right.
The guy’s had a big nut to crack on the first of each month with all those alimony and child-support payments and so he takes every sponsor exemption he can.
The problem isn’t as much that as it is that the 44-year-old has habitually pissed those opportunities away.
A year ago to the day, Daly declared — falsely, as it turned out — that he was walking away from golf after missing the cut at Torrey Pines.
As the media surrounded Daly on Friday, the caddie of a major winner looked on and shook his head.
“Why do you guys even care about him?” he asked.
Because when a dog bites a man, it’s not a story, but when John Daly in Loudmouth pants takes a bite out a golf tournament, well, that’s a story.
“With me, you don’t know what to expect,” Daly said after a 69 that left him three shots behind leader Bill Haas at the Farmers Insurance Open.
“I’m the same way.”
Knowing Daly’s shtick, I thought his tournament was over when he four-putted the fourth hole — his 13th hole of the day — on Friday.
To put it mildly, this isn’t a man who handles adversity very well.
But this time he did, and played his remaining holes at one under par.
People change. Maybe Daly has, too.
“It’s night and day,” he said of the difference in his outlook, and his game, from a year ago.
Daly, who says he’s healthy for the first time in years and used to his new slimmer body, loves Torrey Pines. His last tournament victory came here, in 2004.
But can he author golf’s ultimate redemption story this weekend?
“I can’t think about that,” he said.
“I just want to put up decent scores. Whether I do (win) or not, I just want to know I walked off the golf course saying I hit it pretty good. As long as I can keep doing that, I’ll get some confidence in my game.
“If something great happens, it happens. If it doesn’t, it’s no big deal. I’m building on something right now.”
Another man building on Friday was Phil Mickelson.
Mickelson hasn’t seriously contended at his hometown event since the year Daly won. Lefty finished a shot out of the playoff that year.
Mickelson‘s been in virtual hibernation since winning the Masters last year, but he shot 69 on the shorter North course on Friday to join Daly at eight under par through two rounds.
Maybe it’s drawing too long a bow, but it was noticeable just how much he enjoyed looking over to see his wife, Amy, who fought breast cancer, once again following him on the course.
“It sure is fun to see her out here smiling and having fun,” he said.
“It’s just we’re in a much better place.”
Mickelson finished his round with two birdies and said he was “looking forward to the weekend.”
Tiger Woods said he was, too, though who knows what it’ll bring for him.
A day after missing numerous putts on the North course, Woods returned to his beloved South course and the good news was that his putter was magnificent.
The bad news was that most of the 122 feet of putts he made on Friday were for par or bogey.
Woods started his day with two great par saves, then rattled off four birdies in succession.
He was suddenly in a tie for fourth and looking every bit like a man who’s won here five straight times, determined to make it six.
Woods had finally made birdie on a par 5 for the first time on the sixth, but after he missed birdie chances at seven and eight, his round seemed to come undone when he failed to capitalize on a perfect tee shot at the par-5 ninth.
“I just hit a bomb down there, and I have a simple little 3-wood down there. It’s no big deal, only 265 (yards) front. Just anything to the left, anything over to the left. I could’ve hit the ball 40 yards left and it would be fine and I just couldn’t put the ball where I put it (short-sided on the right).”
I asked him if that’s how a round loses its momentum.
“Absolutely,” he said.
“It’s a simple little mistake like that and it cost me a chance to build on what I had already built in the early part of the round.”
Woods just totally lost his way on the back nine. He couldn’t hit a green but found a lot of bunkers. He played 13 shots out of bunkers on Friday. Twice he left the ball in the sand.
But he finished strong, almost making a hole-in-one on the 16th before two flawless shots on the last set up a two-putt birdie.
“If you take into account how I lost it in the middle part of the round, I could easily have shot even par, but I got it back to three under which is respectable,” he said.
