This morning, Bacon broke the news that John Daly and his beer gut are crazier than ever, and as he "prepares" for the Open Championship, he's advised Butch Harmon, his former swing coach (for all of four months), to stay the hell away.
In addition to these gems, Golf Channel's Rich Lerner also got a few choice nuggets from Daly and Harmon, the best of which are transcribed below.
Harmon: "He's a person who likes to blame other people for any of his shortcomings and I'm sorry he's like that ..."This all stems from the PODS Championship earlier this year, when Daly had Buccaneers coach Jon Gruden on the bag for part of the first round. Big John claimed that his regular caddie was injured and he needed someone to carry his bag. Harmless enough, right. Uh, no.
Harmon dumped Daly afterward (and this didn't help, I imagine), and now, JD feels he needs to set the record straight: "
... But then the stories come out that I was drinking in the [Hooter's] tent [during the rain delay] drunk and stuff on Thursday, and it's a joke.Two days later, after rounds of 78, 80, Daly returned to the Hooter's tent to do "charity work."
Yeah, I had a couple of beers, big deal. Signed about, you know, 1,000 autographs, it was a great day, and the next thing I know, it's more bad rumors come out."Which led to this, and today, this.
Despite Harmon's claims that getting drunk it is the "most important thing" in Daly's life, Big John denies that he was inebriated at the PODS.
"I tried talking to him on the phone -- the Byron Nelson -- and he apologized to me and said he'd retract what he said but he never did."Harmon's response:
"I don't think I ever said I would retract what I said. I said I'm sorry my words my have caused him pain, but I still felt that if he could get some help and get his life turned around that he could still be a great champion. And I still say that."I can't say this enough, but there really is no better way to prepare for a major than to accuse people you barely know of ruining your life. It's still not too late to get Daly at 150-1.*
* If Daly's 150-1, David Duval should be 1-1.
