John Daly: The Everyman Hero of Golf

Augusta, Ga. - On Monday, when Augusta National closed its gates to patrons because of inclement weather, golf fans still found a historic site to pay homage to golf history. Just a mile from Augusta's iconic Magnolia Lane, they wait in the rain - young and old, foreign and domestic - to pay pilgrimage. As Simon (and maybe Garfunkel) once said, they've all come to look for America.

It's officially Masters week in Augusta. But when you exit I-20, head east on Washington Road and orient toward Augusta National Golf Club, you're first greeted by another tradition unlike any other.

'COME SEE JOHN DALY TODAY,' reads a sign outside Hooters, where, since 1997, the large - and larger than life - peanut M&M-eatin', Diet Coke-swiggin' legend sets up all week to sell his wares and take pictures with his people, with a Marlboro Red dangling above his wooly beard.

'John Daly's my hero,' said Bret Bowen, an Augusta resident. 'He's the best, drunkest golfer there ever was.'

Daly, who hasn't played in the Masters since 2006, still shows up every year, offering a stark contrast to the sanctity of the world's most famous golf course down the street. Inside the fences of Augusta National, there are no phones, no cameras and certainly no Marlboros. At Hooters, however, lies the other Augusta, the touchstone for fans to get up close with an everyman icon at a place where he can do what he needs to do.

'Eat some good food, smoke, sell some s---,' Daly said.

And he sells a lot of, uh, stuff. Last year, Daly sold about $780,000 of goods on the Hooters patio, according to his team. This year, he may exceed that due to Monday's rainout and the line that stretched farther than one of Daly's bombs off the tee box. The hats - some with an illustration of Daly's face, others encouraging us to grip it and rip it - at $40, keep selling all day. Boxes of his 'Short Game' cigars, with 20 4½-inch-long stogies, 'full of cinnamon earth and elegant floral notes,' sell for $250. They were sold out by Wednesday morning.

He's the king of the other Augusta. AirDNA, which tracks short-term rental data, says daily rental prices in town average $656 per night on nearly 4,000 listings during the week of the Masters, as opposed to $219 with about 1,500 offerings the rest of the year. On Friday of last year's tournament, 292 private jets arrived at Augusta Regional Airport. Most of Long John's fans aren't in the billionaire set, but they're devoted, and many come bearing gifts. Behind his merch tables, there was a box of Vidalia onions, the famed sweet Georgia version, given to him by 'Dale from Vidalia,' an annual gift for the past decade. A fan from the Midwest brought him their state's most famous export as well.

'My Wisconsin guy always brings the cheese,' Daly said. 'I eat the s--- out of the cheese and onions. You cannot beat a Vidalia onion. I don't care who you are.'

Another Wisconsin resident, Larry Stelow, who began painting pet portraits after he retired, brought Daly a 16-inch by 20-inch acrylic painting of him and a dog.

'That. Is. Badass.' Daily said, as he snapped a photo with Stelow.

'All I wanted was to have myself in a picture with John and the painting,' Stelow said. 'It was special for me.'

Daly sells signed golf balls for $10 - '$1 for the ball, $9 for the signature,' one of his staffers said, along with pictures, shirts and replica pin flags from his 1991 PGA Championship win at Crooked Stick in Carmel, Indiana, for $100. He'll sign anything anyone buys and takes a picture with them.

And he also made Bowen's dreams come true.

'John Daly gave me a cigarette!' he said.

Daly tees off on the 18th hole at the Old Course in 1995. He would go on to win that Open Championship. Anton Want/ALLSPORT

Daly's legend began at Crooked Stick in 1991 when the unknown 25-year-old, a former University of Arkansas golfer, slipped into the PGA Championship as the ninth alternate and then won the whole thing despite never having seen the course before.

Everyman golfers were in awe of his grip-it-and-rip-it style. He became the first player to average more than 300 yards off the tee in 1997 and led the PGA Tour in driving distance 11 times between 1991 and 2002. He also won a second major, the Open Championship, at St. Andrews in 1995. It was a shock to the system for the sport.

Off the course, Daly was more Jack Black than Jack Nicklaus, an eccentric character with a mullet who ripped cigs, drank beer, ate at Hooters - his favorite restaurant - and never took himself too seriously. On the course, he pushed the limits of golf fashion from argyle to anarchy.

Rebecca Gaines of Athens, Georgia, said she has taken off work to come see Daly for the past five years, saying she admired his style, which generally included neon, skulls, an American flag, paint splatters - or any combination of the above.

Legendary golf writer Dan Jenkins once described Daly's pants at an Open Championship appearance: 'A Motel 6 called from the states - they want their shower curtain returned.'

That's not how Gaines feels. 'He's my favorite because of his clothes,' she said. 'That's the reason I was attracted to him.'

Daly's caddie, Lance Odom, met him a few years ago while he was caddying for David Duval on the Champions Tour. The two hit it off, and Odom, who helps Daly keep the line moving and snaps photos with fans and autograph seekers, says he's never seen anything like the attention Daly commands, especially not among other golfers.

'The people come here and it's like the first time to Disney with him,' Odom said. 'Each person that comes up, they have a story. It's like being with Michael Jordan. You can't go to the gas station without people coming up.'

And they all have their reasons.

Scott Grennell of Hinesville, Georgia, isn't here for golf. He's on his lunch break from work and wanted to make it count.

'Growing up, I had two heroes: Pete Rose and John Daly,' he said. 'And I got to meet one today.'

Ed Burns, an Englishman from Liverpool who lives in Toronto, admires the sense of populism and Americana that Daly brought to the buttoned-up sport.

'He was one of the guys who changed it, an ordinary guy like that,' Burns said. 'He won the Open. Dude's got my admiration.'

Jason Gamble and his friends, who are part of a big golf group on WhatsApp, stopped by Wednesday before going to the Masters.

'He's like the guy in your golf group. He's just a lot better,' Gamble said alongside his friend, Malik Davis, who is from Augusta. 'We're all ex-athletes, football, basketball, but it doesn't necessarily translate to golf. So when you see somebody that makes the game look as easy as John does, it's easy to appreciate that type of talent, and he's just an everyday guy. He's the guy you want in your foursome.'

For them, Daly is a role model.

'John resonates with us. You see the DBT?' he says, pointing to his hat. 'That's the name of our golf group: Drunk By the Turn. John is our mascot. I love what he represents. He's just an easy, free guy. Smoking cigarettes, drinking and playing golf.'

And in some cases, he even salvaged what could have been a Masters-week disaster.

Pam Duvall took off work, booked an Airbnb and drove three hours to meet a friend who promised her passes. But once she got to Augusta, the friend was nowhere to be found.

'It was as expensive as you might imagine,' she said. 'Can't make this s--- up.'

But she had a fallback plan.

'We said we're going to go to Hooters, and if we can see John Daly and get a picture with him, it will make all this worth it,' Duvall said. 'My children put in their orders for what they wanted me to get them at the Masters. I got them signed merchandise by John Daly. That's going to make it all better.'

Daly has had his share of health struggles over the past few years. He was diagnosed with bladder cancer in September 2020. Daly's treatment included surgery, one of 16 he estimates that he's had in the past eight years, including on both feet, both knees, a shoulder, an elbow and a wrist.

'I got more metal in me than the bionic man Lee Majors does,' he said. 'But I'm still living, man. I'm like Lazarus, I just keep coming back from the f---ing dead.'

So Daly says he hopes to continue showing up at Hooters every year as long as they'll have him. He isn't paid an appearance fee, but it's a mutually beneficial arrangement for the two parties, who also have a business partnership. Daly's son, John Daly II, is a golfer at his dad's alma mater, the University of Arkansas, and just won his first collegiate tournament this week at the Columbia Spring Invitational, with the proud papa bragging about 'Little John's' resilience down the stretch.

'How cool is that?' Daly said. 'Birdie, eagle, birdie, birdie, birdie finish and got in a playoff at 1-under. That's how hard the course was.'

But don't expect to see Little John, who also has an NIL deal with Hooters, slinging T-shirts anytime soon.

'He's going to concentrate on the golf,' Daly said.

The party has changed in the past couple of years for Daly in Augusta. Originally, he would pull up in a bus or RV in the parking lot and spend the week there, with people knocking on his door at all hours of night. Odom recalls a couple of years ago when someone was banging on the door before realizing it was Michael Phelps, who just wanted to hang.

The tent in the parking lot that turned into a big party is no more after Augusta National bought the strip mall where Hooters is located and started to use it as parking for fans. But he's happy with his patio on the side, his own little dominion where his fans can eat, smoke and buy some stuff.

'I may never get in the Hall of Fame, but you know what? It seems like I'll always have the fans,' Daly said. 'I love them, and they know that. We just connect. Blue-collar people are supposed to connect.'

Alexis Davis, an Augusta resident who's a waitress at Hooters, said it's her favorite week of the year because of the cross-section of fans that Daly attracts.

'The golf people, they bring in a different kind of energy,' she said. 'They're excited, they're ready to go to the Masters or they're coming back from the Masters and they're telling me all their stories.'

She said Daly is a perfect conduit to bring together the fun-loving and buttoned-up sides of golf.

'You can have both,' she said. 'You can have golf, you can have proper Masters attire, but you also can let loose and still enjoy yourself.'

Or, as another Daly fan, Karson Angell, put it:

'If you're going to the Masters and you ain't coming to Hooters after, then where you at?'