Stay up to date with notifications from The Independent

Notifications can be managed in browser preferences.

Daly disgruntled by results of battle between brain and instinct

Ken Jones
Friday 19 July 2002 00:00 BST
Comments

Standing outside the clubhouse at Muirfield yesterday, John Daly muttered that he had nothing to say after struggling to three over in the Open Championship. Actually, what he said was quite incomprehensible. He fiddled with the ball pocket of his golf bag, glanced across at a lady who turned out to be his wife, and slouched off at her side. As you may have guessed, Daly was disgruntled.

Three over was not where Daly had expected to be. Even if the pin positions were less than generous, the course had not been tricked up. It was out there in front of him and he thought he had the game. Not the old Daly game, the drives that took off like Exocets, sometimes splitting the fairway at prodigious distance, sometimes disappearing into areas of golf courses with which club members were not familiar. The demons held at bay, Daly is a different man and a different golfer.

At Muirfield in 1992, when Daly appeared for the first time in The Open, his reputation went before him. Crowds gathered in expectation. This was not just the guy who came bursting out of nowhere to win the USPGA Championship but a guy with a cranked-up swing that generated astonishing power.

After his second round in 1992, standing quite near to where he was when refusing to address the nation yesterday, Daly, at level par, remarked on the weather forecast. "If it blows like they reckon it will, I could be hitting the ball into the next county," he said. It blew, and Daly shot 80. Last goes out first. Going out first in the final round, Daly was unable to improve his position. Three years later, he won The Open at St Andrews.

At St Andrews he was able to go for length without worrying too much about the consequences. Muirfield does not encourage daring. You could drive a combine harvester through the rough and not make much of an impression. It would not come as a surprise to discover that search parties are standing by to look for missing spectators.

As it happens, the rough was not a problem for Daly because on the tee he is now more of a conservative thinker. Accuracy is uppermost in his mind. Yesterday, you could have put up most of Daly's drives as examples of sensible application. But here is a man who probably cannot fully work himself out, cannot decide between being one thing or another. His instinct tells him one thing, his brain tells him another.

At the par-five fifth, Daly took a wood from his bag and went for the green, trying to cover 560 yards in two shots. Caution did not figure in his thoughts. Off went the ball but not exactly where Daly intended. It cleared Paul Lawrie, Loren Roberts and Dean Wilson on the 12th tee before ending up against the 11th green; Daly shook his head and reached for a cigarette. Daly's playing partners, Padraig Harrington and Adam Scott, exchanged startled glances.

At the turn, Daly, one over, had missed two fairways. On the back nine, he missed three. Not good enough. Harrington missed only three in a cautiously played round which could easily have brought him in lower than two under. "I played very conservative [sic] all the way through the front nine and more or less the back nine," Harrington said. "I went out, as in any major, just trying to stay in there and not make too many mistakes. The danger in the opening round is that you can quickly blow yourself out of the tournament. I even hit a five-iron from the tee at nine, a par five!"

Harrington had thought the scoring would be better. "The toughest thing is selecting the right club off the tee because the breeze changes. I only hit one bad shot all day and could have made more birdies, so I've got to be satisfied."

With Scott so at odds with himself that he would finish at six over, virtually out of the championship, Daly got back to level par with a birdie at the 11th only to lose shots at the 13th and 14th. "Come on big John, you can do better," someone in the gallery said as Daly strode to the 15th tee. Hearing this, Daly smiled. "Hey man, I'm trying like hell," he said.

At the 17th, a hole of 546 yards, Muirfield's second longest, Daly made birdie; at the 18th he outdrove Harrington and Scott by 30 yards only to overhit his approach. "John, John," said someone who clearly knows him and had his welfare in mind. By then the scowl on Daly's face looked permanent. It took him three to get down, another shot gone. He was in no mood for conversation.

Join our commenting forum

Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies

Comments

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in