The Week: Love Story

Saying troubles are behind them, John and Sherrie Daly come out smelling like a rose

By Jim Gorant

Valentine's Day usually brings out the best in people. John Daly, for example, gave his wife, Sherrie, three dozen long-stem red roses. He then gave himself and his legion of fans an even bigger love offering -- a playoff victory in the Buick Invitational at Torrey Pines with a final score of 10-under 278. "I just love the fans," he said afterward. "The drunk ones, the sober ones, all of 'em. I love 'em all."

Daly got his first win since wedding his fourth wife. Lenny Ignelzi/AP

Romance, unfortunately, tends to be a zero-sum game. "I kept staring at the scoreboard, praying for other people to get bogeys," Sherrie said on Sunday evening. "I know that's not nice, but I didn't care about anyone but John." By the time she made this admission, the yellow flag from the 18th hole was safely tucked into her leopard-skin purse. The flag, even more than the roses, spoke to the tenderness of the moment. It represented Daly's first PGA Tour victory in 189 starts and his first with Sherrie at his side. Daly's four previous Tour titles were shared with his second and third wives, Bettye Fulford (1991 PGA Championship, '92 B.C. Open) and Paulette Dean ('94 BellSouth Classic, '95 British Open).

Daly's marital record is significant for two reasons: He is the co-author of a splendid country song, All My Exes Wear Rolexes, and he had his lawyers draw up divorce papers against Sherrie in October. In those papers, which were never filed, the golfer claimed that his wife physically and verbally abused him and had kept him in the dark about a federal investigation that led to her indictment last summer on money-laundering charges. "No human being deserves what she's done to me," John told SI at the time. To which Sherrie replied, "I think he has really gone nuts. I think he has drunk himself to where his mind's not even right."

These days the marital outlook is rosier. "Since October there's been no problem," Sherrie said on Sunday. "Not a cross word between us." And whereas 2003 saw Sherrie put a choke hold on a naked stripper who cozied up to John at a charity outing in Little Rock, 2004 has been jealousy-free -- at least by Sherrie's account. "Now all the strippers stay away because they think I'm a psycho."

Well, almost all of them. Photographs of Daly, clothed but entwined with a topless vixen, popped up recently on the web site of a Canadian porn star. Which only proves, as John said at Torrey Pines, "everybody's got problems in life."

That little faux pas aside, all seems to be lovey-dovey with the Dalys. John dotes on his four children. Sherrie faces the future optimistically, dismissing her upcoming trial with a blithe, "We'll let the jury decide." Seven-month-old John Patrick Daly burbles happily.

Cupid, meanwhile, left San Diego on a high, his quiver empty. When Daly tapped in for the birdie that beat Luke Donald and Chris Riley on the first playoff hole, you could hardly see the Outback blimp through all the love in the air. John loved Sherrie. Sherrie loved John. John loved the fans. The fans loved John. Someone even gave the Dalys two dozen more roses, which Sherrie carried like an actress making curtain calls. "That's five dozen roses this week," she said. "I can sprinkle rose petals everywhere."

It sounded like a plan

-- John Garrity

Heard on the Range

Forget Waldo, Where's Jim? U.S. Open champ Jim Furyk has been M.I.A. since the Sony Open in mid-January. The injury-prone 33-year-old has reaggravated the wrist ailment that has plagued him since 1996. He hopes to return for the March 4-7 Ford Championship at Doral.... If Michelle Wie decides to play college golf at Stanford, she might do it for the men's team. At a recent collegiate event in Waikoloa, Hawaii, several men's coaches, including Stanford's Jeff Mitchell and UCLA's O.D. Vincent, discussed the possibility. "I've found no NCAA rules prohibiting it," says Vincent.... After missing the cut at the Buick and ending his top 10 streak at 12, Vijay Singh said he was heading home to Florida, but at 10 a.m. on Sunday he was on the range at Torrey Pines beating balls.... Greg Norman didn't qualify for the Masters, so he's lending caddie Tony Navarro to 19-year-old Australian Nick Flanagan, who made it to Augusta by winning the 2003 U.S. Amateur.... Lee Trevino, on the traffic congestion in Naples, Fla., the site of last week's ACE Group Classic: "People retire down here to live another 15 years and then spend 7 1/2 of them in their cars." ... Cristie Kerr, one of six LPGA members playing in the inaugural Miami Beach Invitational on Feb. 27, has been lobbying for the celebrity Pro-Am to become the LPGA's season-opening event. The tournament benefits the Breast Cancer Research Foundation, and for Kerr, whose mom recently beat the disease, that's reason enough. The LPGA hasn't played a regular event in South Florida since 2000.

-- Jim Gorant and Farrell Evans

Issue date: February 23, 2004