The ongoing saga of John Daly…

I noticed in the virtual golfing press today that the great John Daly has had yet another “blip” in his life. Yet again it involves a wife but this time the twist is that his current wife tried to stab him with a steak knife – nice. He appeared at the Stanford St. Jude Championship, where he has a sponsor’s exception (pretty much the only way he gets into tournaments these days), with what appeared to be claw marks on his face.

It seems that his life just goes from one “car crash” to another and this is certainly a tragedy for golf. He is one of the last bona fide characters in an increasingly anodyne and sponsor friendly sport. During my challenge I learnt a great deal from John Daly but not what you might expect. My natural tendency to want to be a swashbuckling Seve-style golfer would make you believe that I loved his “grip it and rip it” approach to golf but that isn’t the case. Very much like Seve what I got out of John Daly was an incredible appreciation of his short game. His touch round the greens is awe-inspiring and yet never really discussed too greatly. As ever short game skills rarely make the headlines – huge drives, expensive divorces and alleged attempted stabbings are much better copy.

Focus on this…

Not this…

And certainly not this

During the challenge one of the videos I watched repeatedly was the “A round with John Daly” DVD in the Playing lessons with the pros series. I have a feeling this is now out of print but sometimes appears on ebay. If you can find it I recommend it hugely. Not only do you get a chance to see his touch round the greens in action (and some of his practice techniques) but you get a grasp on just how pleasant a gentle a character he seems to be.

In particular one little gem of a short game tip totally transformed my pitching when I was struggling. The whole process and how I amended it to my game is contained in my “From Scratch to Scratch” ebook manual which will be available later this month. I’ll keep you posted as to when that is available.