Daly Circus Coming to a Town Near You

Rumor spread a few years ago at a golf course outside Chicago, that John Daly, who was supposed to be there, had had a heart attack and died. The next day, he showed up at his practice round.

Afterward, as he stuffed his clubs into the trunk of the car, prepared to head off to Hooters for an autograph session, and stopped for a quick smoke, I talked with him in the parking lot.

Cigarettes are bad for your health, you know.

"I figured since I came back from the dead,'' he said, "I might as well smoke anyway.''

So you don't even have any health problems?

"No,'' he said. "I don't even have to take Viagra yet.''

It was classic Daly. People can relate. The story of Daly is supposed to be of your typical Average Joe making it in a country club sport. A little too much drinking, gambling, hard living, yes, but he has normal-guy problems. And in the end, he's still making money, still beating the elite by gripping it and ripping it.

But we've gone way past that now with Daly. He returns in two weeks in Memphis from a six-month suspension that the PGA Tour handed him for embarrassing behavior. Do you feel the same way about him now? The drinking, gambling, hard living are not at normal-guy levels anymore.

"I know I'll be ready to play,'' he told the Associated Press. "I'm not going to be [half-trying] like I've done in the past.''

Daly comes back now, having had some minimal success on the European tour, including a second-place finish at the Italian Open. He has a new coach, after the old one walked off, complaining that Daly cared more about being drunk than about golf. He is said to be running out of money.

And he vows, usually on Twitter, that this time will be different. But also, this time, we're going to get a front-row look. His demons won't be just behind closed-doors, popping up every once in a while when he, say, is wearing an orange jumpsuit in a mugshot after police have picked him up when he had passed out, drunk.


See, Daly will return roughly 50 pounds lighter, which some people see as evidence of his commitment. Truth is, and he hasn't hidden this, he had a lap band procedure on his stomach, and it will be a success only if he changes his lifestyle.

It's a new chance for health, and the tour is giving him a new chance for his career and finances. Last chance? Hah. There is never a last chance.

But if Daly starts to falter, we'll see it first in his waistline. Dr. Jeffrey Rosen, a leading surgeon at Good Samaritan Hospital in Downers Grove, Ill., performs the lap band procedure, though he's not Daly's doctor. You can see pictures of a band and a video of the procedure on his site at lifeweigh.com (click on procedures, then Lap-Band).

How is the lap band different than stomach stapling?

"There's not cutting of the stomach or moving around the intestine,'' Rosen said. "A balloon goes around the top part of the stomach. We put it in and wrap it around.''

Basically, if I've got this right, using five small incisions, he wraps the balloon, which has a cord hanging down to a port. That port goes near the belly-button, and doctors can use it to inflate the balloon.

"That creates a restriction or tightness in the stomach,'' Rosen said. "When someone eats solid food, you have enough restriction. The food sits up above the band, giving you fullness. Slowly, it goes through and absorbs into the system, and you don't eat as much.

"You have less of an appetite for solid foods.''

Solid foods. The risk is that Daly can get used to eating soft foods that go down easily, such as ice cream, pudding, yogurt, Rosen said.

"Not to pick on John Daly, but if you drink alcohol, it goes through faster,'' Rosen said. "Without a lot of food [in the stomach], the alcohol absorbs faster in the system.'' So you get drunk faster, on less alcohol.

"When you're drunk, you don't think about new behaviors you're trying to do, and you go into old habits. If you're not doing lifestyle changes, exercise, eating correctly, you're not going to be successful in the long term.

"It would be nice if people could push the positives and not try to test Daly to go back to his old life. Don't wait for the time bomb to go off, but encourage the positive. Don't give him a beer, don't give him a hot dog. If you put the kid in the candy store ...''

Daly already has talked on Twitter about kicking back with a drink and cigarettes. His weight is going to be a real watch, a show of whether he's staying in control.

Daly, who's 43, comes back with an entirely new look, including his pants. He signed an endorsement deal with a clothing company that requires him to wear the company's outrageously wild colored pants. It's fitting that after all these self-inflicted troubles, he has to dress up as a clown before taking another shot at it.

In the past year, roughly, we've seen him in the orange jumpsuit, using a beer can as a tee while playing with Kid Rock in a pro-am, smashing a fan's camera against a tree. Let's see, what else? He came out of a hospitality tent after a rain delay, using former Tampa Bay Bucs coach Jon Gruden as his caddie. That's when coach Butch Harmon gave up.

"It's nice to know I weigh less than my luggage now! lol,'' Daly wrote on Twitter, saying he weighs 225.

And then he wrote this: "1st few things lookin to have in U.S. is White Cheddar Popcorn & a fresh U.S. Diet Coke!''

The Daly Show begins again.