Daly Returns With His Vow To Stay Sober

A trimmed-down John Daly is preparing for a return to PGA competition following a five-week absence that started with his abrupt withdrawal from the U.S. Open.

Accompanied by his familiar crushing drives is another commitment to sobriety, and a push to get back to having fun with the game that thrust him into the spotlight after winning the PGA Championship six years ago.

“Everybody for the last three years has been saying go out and have fun. It’s easy to say that,” Daly said Tuesday while practicing at the TPC at River Highlands, site of this week’s Greater Hartford Open.

“The only fun I used to have is what got me suspended,” he said.

His golf bag carries more than just his clubs this time, bearing the words “God, Serenity, Courage, Wisdom.” Daly said he has been attending Alcoholics Anonymous meetings as often as five days a week.

Daly, 30, was suspended in 1993 after quitting during the second round of the Kapalua International. After fighting with a 62-year-old man at the World Series of Golf in August 1994, he agreed to sit out the rest of the year.

He underwent alcohol rehabilitation for the second time in four years after a drinking binge at the Players Championship in March.

The rocky road continued at the U.S. Open last month when he quit at the turn in the second round. He said he withdrew because of shakes brought on by anti-depressant medication.

The once beefy Daly, slimmed down to 198 pounds and sober since March, said things will be different this time around.

“I feel good and my game is solid,” he said. “It’ll be a little different because I haven’t played in a month and a half, but I’m not going to worry about what I’m going to shoot. I’m just going to go out and play and see how I feel. There’s no goals these days, except sobriety.”

Not on the fast track

A problem Americans know all about became a hot topic among officials of the Royal and Ancient Golf Club at the British Open over the weekend - slow play.

The R&A guidelines for threesome matches, as are played the first two rounds, are they are to be completed in 4 hours and 20 minutes. Some groups needed 5 hours to play on Thursday and Friday.

But while the R&A recognized the problem, it seemed unwilling to do anything about it. It blamed the players and left it at that.

There was one instance during the British Open when Nick Price needed two shots to get out of a bunker and Nick Faldo was still not ready to hit so Price went ahead and played his third shot.

“He had all that time to prepare and still wasn’t ready,” Price said.

Faldo, Bernhard Langer and Tiger Woods are three of the slowest players on the tour.

Among the suggestions for speeding up play in the British Open is reducing the field from 156 players to 120, which it was until 1964.

Divots

Children under 18 were allowed in for free at the British Open and there were many very young tots on the course. On No. 3 on Sunday, Colin Montgomerie asked a child to quiet down before he hit a chip shot. Montgomerie holed the chip and then gave the lad the ball. “I gave him the ball for being good,” he said. … British Open winner Justin Leonard flew into Scotland the Sunday morning before the British Open and did not make the trip to Valderrama in Spain with captain Tom Kite and other potential members of the Ryder Cup team. “I wasn’t invited,” Leonard said.