AUGUSTA, Ga. — On Monday, when Augusta Nationwide closed its gates to patrons due to inclement climate, golf followers nonetheless discovered a historic website to pay homage to golf historical past.
Only a mile from Augusta’s iconic Magnolia Lane, they wait within the rain — younger and previous, overseas and home — to pay pilgrimage. As Simon (and possibly Garfunkel) as soon as mentioned, they’ve all come to search for America.
It is formally Masters week in Augusta. However once you exit I-20, head east on Washington Highway and orient towards Augusta Nationwide Golf Membership, you are first greeted by one other custom in contrast to another.
“COME SEE JOHN DALY TODAY,” reads an indication exterior Hooters, the place, since 1997, the big — and bigger than life — peanut M&M-eatin’, Eating regimen Coke-swiggin’ legend units up all week to promote his wares and take photos along with his folks, with a Marlboro Pink dangling above his wooly beard.
“John Daly’s my hero,” mentioned Bret Bowen, an Augusta resident. “He is one of the best, drunkest golfer there ever was.”
Daly, who hasn’t performed within the Masters since 2006, nonetheless reveals up yearly, providing a stark distinction to the sanctity of the world’s most well-known golf course down the road. Contained in the fences of Augusta Nationwide, there are not any telephones, no cameras and definitely no Marlboros. At Hooters, nevertheless, lies the opposite Augusta, the touchstone for followers to rise up shut with an everyman icon at a spot the place he can do what he must do.
“Eat some good meals, smoke, promote some s—,” Daly mentioned.
And he sells numerous, uh, stuff. Final 12 months, Daly bought about $780,000 of products on the Hooters patio, based on his group. This 12 months, he could exceed that because of Monday’s rainout and the road that stretched farther than one among Daly’s bombs off the tee field. The hats — some with an illustration of Daly’s face, others encouraging us to grip it and rip it — at $40, hold promoting all day. Packing containers of his “Brief Sport” cigars, with 20 4½-inch-long stogies, “filled with cinnamon earth and stylish floral notes,” promote for $250. They have been bought out by Wednesday morning.
He is the king of the opposite Augusta. AirDNA, which tracks short-term rental knowledge, says every day rental costs on the town common $656 per evening on practically 4,000 listings throughout the week of the Masters, versus $219 with about 1,500 choices the remainder of the 12 months. On Friday of final 12 months’s match, 292 non-public jets arrived at Augusta Regional Airport. Most of Lengthy John’s followers aren’t within the billionaire set, however they’re devoted, and plenty of come bearing presents. Behind his merch tables, there was a field of Vidalia onions, the famed candy Georgia model, given to him by “Dale from Vidalia,” an annual present for the previous decade. A fan from the Midwest introduced him their state’s most well-known export as nicely.
“My Wisconsin man all the time brings the cheese,” Daly mentioned. “I eat the s— out of the cheese and onions. You can not beat a Vidalia onion. I do not care who you’re.”
One other Wisconsin resident, Larry Stelow, who started portray pet portraits after he retired, introduced Daly a 16-inch by 20-inch acrylic portray of him and a canine.
“That. Is. Badass.” Each day mentioned, as he snapped a photograph with Stelow.
“All I needed was to have myself in an image with John and the portray,” Stelow mentioned. “It was particular for me.”
Daly sells signed golf balls for $10 — “$1 for the ball, $9 for the signature,” one among his staffers mentioned, together with photos, shirts and duplicate pin flags from his 1991 PGA Championship win at Crooked Stick in Carmel, Indiana, for $100. He’ll signal something anybody buys and takes an image with them.
And he additionally made Bowen’s desires come true.
“John Daly gave me a cigarette!” he mentioned.
Daly’s legend started at Crooked Stick in 1991 when the unknown 25-year-old, a former College of Arkansas golfer, slipped into the PGA Championship because the ninth alternate after which received the entire thing regardless of by no means having seen the course earlier than.
Everyman golfers have been in awe of his grip-it-and-rip-it type. He turned the primary participant to common greater than 300 yards off the tee in 1997 and led the PGA Tour in driving distance 11 instances between 1991 and 2002. He additionally received a second main, the Open Championship, at St. Andrews in 1995. It was a shock to the system for the game.
Off the course, Daly was extra Jack Black than Jack Nicklaus, an eccentric character with a mullet who ripped cigs, drank beer, ate at Hooters — his favourite restaurant — and by no means took himself too critically. On the course, he pushed the boundaries of golf trend from argyle to anarchy.
Rebecca Gaines of Athens, Georgia, mentioned she has taken off work to return see Daly for the previous 5 years, saying she admired his type, which typically included neon, skulls, an American flag, paint splatters — or any mixture of the above.
Legendary golf author Dan Jenkins as soon as described Daly’s pants at an Open Championship look: “A Motel 6 known as from the states — they need their bathe curtain returned.”
That is not how Gaines feels. “He is my favourite due to his garments,” she mentioned. “That is the explanation I used to be interested in him.”
Daly’s caddie, Lance Odom, met him a number of years in the past whereas he was caddying for David Duval on the Champions Tour. The 2 hit it off, and Odom, who helps Daly hold the road transferring and snaps images with followers and autograph seekers, says he is by no means seen something like the eye Daly instructions, particularly not amongst different golfers.
“The folks come right here and it is like the primary time to Disney with him,” Odom mentioned. “Every individual that comes up, they’ve a narrative. It is like being with Michael Jordan. You’ll be able to’t go to the fuel station with out folks developing.”
They usually all have their causes.
Scott Grennell of Hinesville, Georgia, is not right here for golf. He is on his lunch break from work and needed to make it rely.
“Rising up, I had two heroes: Pete Rose and John Daly,” he mentioned. “And I acquired to fulfill one as we speak.”
Ed Burns, an Englishman from Liverpool who lives in Toronto, admires the sense of populism and Americana that Daly dropped at the buttoned-up sport.
“He was one of many guys who modified it, an abnormal man like that,” Burns mentioned. “He received the Open. Dude’s acquired my admiration.”
Jason Gamble and his pals, who’re a part of a giant golf group on WhatsApp, stopped by Wednesday earlier than going to the Masters.
“He is just like the man in your golf group. He is only a lot higher,” Gamble mentioned alongside his good friend, Malik Davis, who’s from Augusta. “We’re all ex-athletes, soccer, basketball, but it surely does not essentially translate to golf. So once you see someone that makes the sport look as straightforward as John does, it is simple to understand that sort of expertise, and he is simply an on a regular basis man. He is the man you need in your foursome.”
For them, Daly is a task mannequin.
“John resonates with us. You see the DBT?” he says, pointing to his hat. “That is the identify of our golf group: Drunk By the Flip. John is our mascot. I really like what he represents. He is simply a straightforward, free man. Smoking cigarettes, ingesting and enjoying golf.”
And in some circumstances, he even salvaged what might have been a Masters-week catastrophe.
Pam Duvall took off work, booked an Airbnb and drove three hours to fulfill a good friend who promised her passes. However as soon as she acquired to Augusta, the good friend was nowhere to be discovered.
“It was as costly as you may think,” she mentioned. “Cannot make this s— up.”
However she had a fallback plan.
“We mentioned we’ll go to Hooters, and if we will see John Daly and get an image with him, it’ll make all this value it,” Duvall mentioned. “My youngsters put of their orders for what they needed me to get them on the Masters. I acquired them signed merchandise by John Daly. That is going to make all of it higher.”
Daly has had his share of well being struggles over the previous few years. He was identified with bladder most cancers in September 2020. Daly’s therapy included surgical procedure, one among 16 he estimates that he is had up to now eight years, together with on each ft, each knees, a shoulder, an elbow and a wrist.
“I acquired extra metallic in me than the bionic man Lee Majors does,” he mentioned. “However I am nonetheless dwelling, man. I am like Lazarus, I simply hold getting back from the f—ing lifeless.”
So Daly says he hopes to proceed displaying up at Hooters yearly so long as they will have him. He is not paid an look price, but it surely’s a mutually helpful association for the 2 events, who even have a enterprise partnership. Daly’s son, John Daly II, is a golfer at his dad’s alma mater, the College of Arkansas, and simply received his first collegiate match this week on the Columbia Spring Invitational, with the proud papa bragging about “Little John’s” resilience down the stretch.
“How cool is that?” Daly mentioned. “Birdie, eagle, birdie, birdie, birdie end and acquired in a playoff at 1-under. That is how exhausting the course was.”
However do not anticipate to see Little John, who additionally has an NIL cope with Hooters, slinging T-shirts anytime quickly.
“He is going to focus on the golf,” Daly mentioned.
The celebration has modified up to now couple of years for Daly in Augusta. Initially, he would pull up in a bus or RV within the car parking zone and spend the week there, with folks knocking on his door in any respect hours of evening. Odom remembers a few years in the past when somebody was banging on the door earlier than realizing it was Michael Phelps, who simply needed to hold.
The tent within the car parking zone that became a giant celebration is not any extra after Augusta Nationwide purchased the strip mall the place Hooters is situated and began to make use of it as parking for followers. However he is completely happy along with his patio on the facet, his personal little dominion the place his followers can eat, smoke and purchase some stuff.
“I could by no means get within the Corridor of Fame, however you understand what? It looks as if I am going to all the time have the followers,” Daly mentioned. “I really like them, they usually know that. We simply join. Blue-collar persons are supposed to attach.”
Alexis Davis, an Augusta resident who’s a waitress at Hooters, mentioned it is her favourite week of the 12 months due to the cross-section of followers that Daly attracts.
“The golf folks, they create in a unique form of power,” she mentioned. “They’re excited, they’re able to go to the Masters or they’re getting back from the Masters they usually’re telling me all their tales.”
She mentioned Daly is an ideal conduit to carry collectively the fun-loving and buttoned-up sides of golf. And his extra well-known pals cease by as nicely: Ken Griffey Jr., Matt Damon and Joey Fatone of NSYNC mingled with the Wednesday crowds.
“You’ll be able to have each,” she mentioned. “You’ll be able to have golf, you possibly can have correct Masters apparel, however you can also let unfastened and nonetheless take pleasure in your self.”
Or, as one other Daly fan, Karson Angell, put it:
“If you are going to the Masters and also you ain’t coming to Hooters after, then the place you at?”
