John Daly is a monster.
Not a fish. Not a whale. A monster.
That's what loan sharks, scamdicappers and Las Vegas casino greeters call guys who have gambling addictions so large, that they are like a freight train barreling downhill.
It came out this week that Daly estimates he's lost $50 million gambling in his pro golf career. His number seems impossibly high, but then what would motivate him to exaggerate?
Besides, I doubt he has a detailed log book of gambling losses at various riverboats, resorts and casinos around the world, do you?
So let's figure out how he got to this point in his life. Hmmm. Let's see. Less than perfect upbringing in Arkansas. Alcoholic dad, leads to alcoholic son. Meteoric rise to fame and fortune when he was least prepared for it. Bad mojo dealing with women in his life. He's too trusting, almost naïve.
Yeah, that's pretty much the recipe for throwing all your money down a water hazard if you are John Daly.
But let's not forget one huge, powerful factor in his financial demise. The media acting as an "enabler" for his destructive addictions.
That's not to place any direct "blame" per se on the media. After all, John is gonna be who John is gonna be. Media scolding or not.
But what I find amazing is that no matter how much of a total screw up Daly is on or off the course, the golf press and sports media as a whole always wants to treat him with soft cabretta leather gloves.
Why should they?
He's a guy who almost drank himself off the Tour, drank his way out of multiple marriages, nearly drank himself into a coma, and get this - still drinks!
Daly's redneck logic, is that "hey, at least it's only beer" and not the hard liquor he used to poison himself with. And somehow, nobody around him in his inner circle says: "John. That's not enough. You need to kick the bottle entirely."
When Daly wins a PGA Tour event like he did at the Buick in San Diego two years ago, it's all gushing from the TV tower about how he's "the people's champ" and that the reason he's so popular is because he's got "problems, just like the average guy who works in the factory."
Whatever.
Problems that are all nearly self-made. Problems that come from a stubborn denial to change, or get better.
How come no TV announcer or major golf writer has the balls to say in essence: "What a waste of talent, this John Daly continues to be." His ability is so sublime, that he shouldn't just occasionally challenge for a Tour victory, he should win one or two every year.
Last year he was in a playoff at Houston with Vijay Singh, but almost casually threw it away by barely warming up on the range before hand, and then foolishly hitting too much club off the tee to find the water on the first playoff hole.
Daly was also in a gripping playoff with Tiger Woods last fall at the Amex Championship at Harding Park in San Francisco. But he piddled it away by missing a 3 footer that was emblematic of a player who never bothers with getting the little things right.
But so few people who cover the Tour ever bother to bring these things up. The writers and broadcasters are just more comfortable buying into the John Daly who is a walking Waylon Jennings country song. The humble misfit, with rebel tendencies, and several failed stints at rehab.
Daly is undeniably generous with his time and money, almost to a fault. He should be applauded for those things. But it doesn't mean the obvious criticisms about him as an athlete should be simply glossed over.
He's way too fat, should not be drinking at all, and is gambling away a fortune that his wife (currently in jail) and kids (too young yet to know much better) are going to need when Daly's talents hitting a golf ball finally erode to the point of unprofitability.
He doesn't have to get six-pack abs, or quit smoking. He doesn't have to stop going for par 5's in two. But fat, drunk and broke is nothing to hold up as charming or loveable.
There, I said it.
Now everyone can make me the bad guy.
Steve is a native Washingtonian and has worked in sports talk radio for the last 11 years. He worked at WTEM in 1993 anchoring Team Tickers before he took a full time job with national radio network One-on-One Sports.
A graduate of UC Santa Barbara, Steve has worked for WFNZ in Charlotte where his afternoon show was named "Best Radio Show." Steve continues to serve as a sports personality for WLZR in Milwaukee and does fill-in hosting for Fox Sports Radio.
