It’s A Wild, Wild, Wild, Wild Win Daly Uses New Resolve To Claim British Open

It was the wildest end to the craziest British Open this Old Course has ever seen, a drama with multiple acts and more twists and turns than the A91 from St. Andrews down to Edinburgh.

So, when it was all over, when the final triple bogey had been made at the Road Hole and the last whoop and holler had died out among the spires and the alleys of the Auld Grey Toon, it was fitting that the winner was none other than the man the Scots call Wild Thing.

John Daly picked Sunday at this haunted old spot to bury a whole bunch of demons, not to mention all the pre-tournament favorites. On a hard, cold and windy day, Daly won the British Open in a four-hole playoff over Costantino Rocca of Italy.

He did it by keeping his patience when those around him were unable to. He did it by hitting all the shots that conventional wisdom said he couldn’t hit. And, finally, he did it by heeding his own version of the famous Churchill one-line commencement address.

He never, ever, ever, ever quit.

Not when he started the day four strokes behind the leader, Michael Campbell. Not when he fought his way to a three-stroke lead by the 13th hole and then suffered back-to-back bogeys at the 16th and 17th holes that cut it to a thin stroke. Not even when Rocca holed a miracle 65-foot putt for birdie to tie after flubbing a chip and appearing finished. Especially not then.

“I don’t know what got into me in that playoff,” said Daly, whose final round of 71 and total of 6-under-par 282 tied him with Rocca, who closed with a 73. “When Costantino made that putt, my spirits kind of sunk. I was hoping it was over. But it wasn’t. It turned out it wasn’t over.”

It could have been over for Daly quite easily, right at that moment when Rocca made the second-luckiest shot he had made in, oh, two holes. Rocca, the affable, easygoing man who is best remembered for his disastrous bogey-bogey finish in his Ryder Cup match with Davis Love 3rd at the Belfry two years ago, was not the likeliest man to be left standing at the end of the day.

But there he was. The usual suspects, and one unusual one, had disappeared down the Old Course’s murderous stretch. Steve Elkington, who could have had a shot at a playoff with a par-birdie finish, was undone by a bogey at the Road Hole and finished tied for sixth.

Mark Brooks, the low-ball hitting, putting machine from Texas, also had reached 6 under par but fell away with a double bogey at the 16th. He ended up tied for third at 283, one stroke out of the playoff, with the surprising Steven Bottomley of Yorkshire, who closed with 69, and Campbell, who struggled to a 76. Corey Pavin (74) and Ernie Els (75) never made runs.

Rocca did, though. When he putted off the road at 17 and the ball magically hopped over the collar and on to the surface, some five feet from the hole for a par save, it seemed he might have a little destiny working with him.

And then came the putt of the year, set up by one of the worst wedge shots under pressure since T.C. Chen double-chipped his way out of the 1985 U.S. Open at Oakland Hills.

When it all unfolded, Daly was standing in the shadow of the world’s most-photographed clubhouse, the home of the Royal & Ancient, his arm around his wife, Paulette, and his eyes on the 18th fairway.

That was where Rocca stood with a wedge in his hand, one stroke out of the lead and with a good shot at making birdie. But Rocca laid the auld sod over it, chunking the shot into the Valley of Sin and leaving himself a seemingly impossible 65-footer.

Which, of course, he drilled right in the heart of the hole, just as John and Paulette Daly were wrapped in a blissful embrace. When he saw the putt go in, Daly’s face suddenly hardened, back into the expression he had worn all day, a sort of fixed gaze. He found Greg Rita, his caddie, and the two headed for the practice putting green next to the first tee, walking right past the exuberant Rocca.

“Nobody would have dreamed Rocca would make that putt,” Daly said. “And when he did, I just had to dig deep down inside. When it went in, I was that close to having a heart attack.”

At the age of 29, Daly already has been through more heartbreak than most men twice his age. He has been married three times, been suspended from the PGA Tour twice, gone through alcohol rehabilitation and been sober for the last three years.

He has alienated his peers by, among other things, driving into groups ahead of him, getting into a parking lot scuffle and once suggesting that there were players on the PGA Tour who use drugs. He has developed a reputation, well earned, for quitting when things get tough.

It happened as recently as last year, when after shooting himself into contention at the British Open at Turnberry in the final round, he hooked a ball onto the beach at the 10th, four-putted the 11th and shot 80 to finish dead last. But that was all over now.

Some of his peers were encouraging him during the wait. Corey Pavin and Bob Estes and Brad Faxon, all of them were patting him on the back and telling him he could do it. When Daly stepped to the tee in the playoff, there was no mistaking his resolve.

It was over quickly. Daly parred the first and Rocca bogeyed it. Then Daly birdied the second from 25 feet away and Rocca, shaken, parred it from 10.

It was really over now. Especially when Rocca drove his ball into the Road Hole bunker and left it there twice while Daly played an exquisite little knockdown 9-iron, the kind of shot he never used to have but has developed recently, right into the middle of the green. He parred the hole, Rocca made triple-bogey seven and Daly went to the final tee with a five-stroke lead.

MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: LEADERBOARD Final scores of the 124th British Open on the 6,933-yard, par-72 Old Course at St. Andrews: John Daly 67-71-73-71-282 C. Rocca 69-70-70-73-282 M. Campbell 71-71-65-76-283 S. Bottomley 70-72-72-69-283 Mark Brooks 70-69-73-71-284 Vijay Singh 68-72-73-71-284 S. Elkington 72-69-69-74-284