TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/082691/0826260.000

Text File | 1992-08-28 | 5.6 KB | 121 lines

                                                                                SPORT, Page 66

Long John Daly Hits It Big


Golf's newest self-taught hero may be the most powerful driver
ever -- and he's a nice guy too

By EUGENE LINDEN/CASTLE ROCK -- With reporting by David E.
Thigpen/New York


    Fresh from the awesome display that won him the 1991 P.G.A.
Championship, John Daly got ready to hit a few practice balls
last week in preparation for the International tourney at
Colorado's Castle Pines Golf Club. As word spread that he was
on the practice tee, a crowd gathered, whistling appreciatively
as he casually knocked iron shots into the far reaches of the
range.

    Then he took out his titanium-shafted Cobra driver, and
the whistles turned to disbelieving laughter as he started
launching balls over the road beyond the driving range. On
neighboring tees, pros like Jose Maria Olazabal and Ian
Baker-Finch broke off their own practice regimens to watch the
ballistic display. A few minutes later Daly headed for the
course. His first drive was a monster 364-yd. shot, followed by
a 280-yd. 3-iron blast. In short order, Daly turned the 644-yd.,
par-5 first hole, the longest on the P.G.A. tour, into an
ordinary par 4.

    If all Daly had to offer was power, he would be a
curiosity in made-for-TV long-ball contests. But the burly,
unassuming 25-year-old with the swing-for-the-fences style is
something more: a genuine athletic phenomenon. The man who
stunned the best golfers in the world during the P.G.A.
Championship at Crooked Stick combined impossibly long tee shots
with soft irons, and dead-on putts that left no openings for his
rivals. During the final four holes, a stretch when even veteran
players get the willies and lose major tournaments, Daly dealt
with his mounting nervousness by playing harder. On the final
hole of the tournament, he says, he took his biggest swing of
the entire competition. It landed in the rough; Daly salvaged
a par 4. "I came to the P.G.A. tournament with nothing to lose,"
he says, "and I think that had everything to do with winning
it." Later, he improved on his spectacular triumph by promising
$30,000 of the $230,000 prize to the children of a spectator
killed by lightning at the tournament.

    Daly realized he had talent when he won a junior
tournament in Ohio at 16. Only a year ago, however, the former
All-America from the University of Arkansas was so disillusioned
with his playing that he considered quitting. His fiancee, Betty
Fulford, counseled him to stay with it. He joined the P.G.A.
tour in March and earned $166,000 before hitting the jackpot
last week.

    In an era when many touring pros act more like accountants
than athletes, Daly makes fans remember that golf is a
thrilling sport. Rarely pausing for more than a quick glance,
Daly plays as though he were being pursued by revenuers. "Sooner
or later you're going to have to hit it anyway," he says, noting
that fast play helps reduce the pressure. His simple philosophy
-- "I just hit it hard as I can, and if I find the ball I hit
it again" -- strikes a responsive chord in galleries. Moreover,
Daly is a rarity: a self-made player. He says he learned to hit
the ball by watching Jack Nicklaus on TV, by looking at
instructional diagrams in golf magazines, and by experimenting
with what felt natural as he played on a rural nine-hole course
in Dardanelle, Ark.

    The result is a unique movement that is the key to his
huge drives. Daly takes the club farther back, turns through
his swing more completely, and follows through more fully than
any other touring pro, and still manages to maintain his
balance. With his broad shoulders and strong legs, the result
is blinding club speed. According to golf coach David
Leadbetter, the average pro golf swing moves the club head at
perhaps 110 m.p.h. Daly's driver may be traveling 140 m.p.h.
when it hits the ball. Says golf legend Sam Snead, who also hit
thunderous drives in his prime: "I never saw a man who could
take a club that far back and drive that well for that long. But
if that swing ever comes unglued, they will never find the
ball."

    Daly is well aware of the pitfalls of his contortionist's
swing. "I may have to change when I'm 35," he says, "if I still
have a back." But for now, Daly believes that the rewards of
being able to fly over hazards placed on fairways where mortal
golfers risk falling into them, and then following up with
shorter, more accurate irons, offset the wild shots.

    There is a long list of golfers who have risen from
obscurity to win major contests only to return to a comfortable
and lucrative mediocrity. Crooked Stick, with its long fairways
and soft greens, may have been the perfect course for Daly. The
question remains as to how he will fare on narrower, firmer
fairways where power can make a bad situation disastrous. Can
he, in short, become a superstar?

    Many pros feel that Daly will have to change the very
peculiarities that have made him golf's latest hero if he is to
get the most out of his prodigious natural ability. It may be
that Daly's swing is too complicated and his game too reliant
on intangibles to carry him to the level of his idol Nicklaus.
But there is something heroic in the quotable slugger's triumph,
and it would be a shame to see him become one of the legion of
golf technocrats who threaten to turn the sport into a boring
science. There may be a lesson for other pros in the enormous
fan response to golf's new Sultan of Swing: people love athletes
who shoot for the stars.