Daly Turns Heads as Open Begins
The names at and near the top of the leaderboard at the British Open Thursday morning were enough to cause a case of whiplash. While the presence of Rory McIlroy of Northern Ireland fell into the “nice surprise” category because of his age (21), his score (63) and the immense pressure on a phenom playing in his own empire, the name John Daly jumped out like a runaway truck.And Tiger Woods shooting a first-round 67 to sit one shot behind Daly’s 66 caused a few double-takes of its own.
But it was Daly would provided the stunner of the morning. His blast-from-the-past round at Scotland’s iconic St. Andrews course was made more eye-popping by his current role as a walking fashion catastrophe. Daly hit the course looking like a Technicolor experiment gone frightfully bad: lavender paisley pants, a peach shirt, blue sweater, often accessorized by a cigarette hanging from his lips. The getup has been Daly’s thing for the past year or so and he said he built this particular mashup on his “good luck start pants.”
This might have been the modern version of Daly, but his game took on tones of 1995, when he won the Open at St. Andrews in one of the many resurrections of his troubled career. His 66 matched his best round at any British Open, and the last time he managed it was 1993.
He was smashing drives and sinking putts with his old panache, pulling a mesmerized gallery along for the ride.
“I haven’t been in this position in a long, long time,” Daly said. “You know, I feel the game is coming around, and when I’m hitting my driver the way I am right now, it brings confidence.”
Woods has been searching for that confidence as well, attempting to re-start his career after the infidelity scandal that turned both his life and game upside-down last November. He managed a fourth-place finish at the Masters despite a leaky swing and his game went awry in the final round of the United States Open.
But St. Andrews has always been good to Woods, as it has to Daly. He had a bogey-free round going until a bad drive led to a bogey at 17.
“We had good weather today,” Woods said, explaining the low scores. “We had no wind. It was like we were playing in a dome. It was so odd to have it so calm.”
It was odder still to see Daly at the center of anything calm. Daly called St. Andrews a special place, holding the memories of that pivotal championship and suiting his game well, when he can chase away the demons in his head that can still hijack his game.
For some reason, Daly said, the demons don’t bother him at St. Andrews.
“There’s just something peaceful about this place,” Daly said. “I remember when I came here in ’95 I wasn’t playing good golf. I was playing horrible golf. I think I had come off missing a few cuts and didn’t know what to expect, but I knew how much I loved this place.”
Daly, 44, said he has come a long way from his most self-destructive days. He had lap-band surgery to help control his weight. He said he can no longer drink beer or overeat. He has struggled with back problems, which have made golf difficult, but he is also used to struggling.
“I’ve learned a lot,” Daly said in his post-round news conference. “I have never run from my mistakes. I’ve always been honest with you guys and everybody around me. You know, it’s how you come back, I think, is for me, I’m on a comeback. I’ve been hurt for a good three and a half years. It makes it very tough to play, get your confidence up when you’re working around injuries.”
McIlroy has none of those worries but carries a different kind of pressure. Hailing from Northern Ireland, he has all of Britain watching him with a special kind of hope. He also has a tough act to follow, his fellow Northern Irelander Graeme McDowell having just won the last major, the United States Open.
“I saw him win that and I thought, ‘If he can do it, why couldn’t I?’ ” McIlroy said. “I know how hard he worked for that.”
McIlroy made his charge with a blistering back nine. He launched that run by driving the green on the 352-yard par-4 for an eagle, then scoring birdies on six of his final nine holes. He even had a birdie chance at the monstrously difficult No. 17, the famous Road Hole that has been made even tougher for this tournament, but missed the putt.
He became the 22nd golfer to shoot 63 in a major. No one has shot a 62.
Source: NY Times
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