Big Letdown

John Daly played his way into this year's Masters, but during tournament week everything that could go wrong did

By Seth Davis

John Daly didn't even bother to change his shoes before hightailing it out of Augusta National last Friday afternoon. Clutching a guitar in his left hand and two stuffed plastic bags in his right, Daly, who was barely 10 minutes removed from the 36th-hole bogey that pushed him a shot above the Masters cut line, marched briskly out of the clubhouse with his spikes clattering against the pavement. Ignoring the gaggle of reporters running after him, he made his way to the parking lot, dumped his golf bag into the trunk of his black sedan with its open 95 license plates, climbed behind the wheel and took off down Magnolia Lane.

Daly had plenty of length but didn't make a putt longer than five feet. John Biever

It was an ignominious conclusion to a week that had begun even worse. Four days earlier Daly's wife, Sherrie, and her parents settled the charges against them in a federal money-laundering case, in Oxford, Miss. Sherrie's father, Alvis Miller, pleaded guilty to conspiring to launder money from gambling operations. Sherrie and her mother, Billie, pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of structuring cash deposits from the family's used-car dealership. The plea bargain recommends that Alvis serve up to two years in prison, while Sherrie and Billie serve five years' probation and up to six months of house arrest. (Sentencing is expected in 60 days.)

Those proceedings were hardly the ideal backdrop for Daly's return to the Masters after a two-year absence, but they help explain why the usually accessible Daly kept such a low profile. He practiced at Augusta on Monday and Tuesday but did not set foot on the grounds on Wednesday. Daly's merchandise trailer, in which his line of Team Lion products was being sold, was parked all week at a Hooters near the course, but Daly, who spends time every day at the trailer signing autographs and moving product during most tournaments, stopped by only twice.

Aside from an interview on the Golf Channel, Daly made only a few early-week comments about Sherrie's plea bargain. "You don't beat a federal court, a federal judge and the FBI. No way," he told reporters. "I told Sherrie, 'You have to look at what's ahead. If there's probation, house arrest, you have to take that. I know you're not a convict. I know you're not guilty. But you're not going to win.'"

While walking the course as her husband played on Thursday, Sherrie insisted that her offenses are not as great as the plea agreement makes them seem. "The prosecutors know my involvement was very small," she said. "My dad was misled and taken advantage of. We hated to make the deal, but in the federal system, ignorance does not excuse you from the law."

The ongoing case has not been the only tumult in Daly's personal life. Last December, Sherrie, who is Daly's fourth wife, confronted John after she discovered pictures of John posing with a topless stripper posted on the Internet. "I think he got scared because I sounded so calm," Sherrie said with a laugh. "He said, 'I understand if you want to divorce me, but nothing happened outside of those pictures,' and I believe him." Still, she paid a detective $50, she says, to track down the woman, who also says that nothing sexual occurred between her and John.

Then, on Feb. 19, a judge of the Superior Court of Riverside County, Calif., ruled in favor of Daly's third wife, Paulette, in a case involving the couple's eight-year-old daughter, Sierra. According to the ruling, John must give Paulette notice before he visits Sierra; the visits may only occur in southern California, Arizona or Nevada (Paulette and Sierra live in Palm Desert, Calif.); and Sherrie may not be present at any time during the visits. The evidence submitted to the judge included a three-page, single-spaced letter from Sierra's therapist, as well as a two-page declaration from John's former personal assistant, Donnie Crabtree, who claimed that he had seen Sherrie screaming at Sierra and physically abusing John. Said Sherrie, "This case is not over. We have attorneys working on it as we speak."

Daly was especially stung by Crabtree's letter because the two had been best friends since attending elementary school together in their hometown of Dardanelle, Ark. (They haven't spoken since Crabtree quit working for Daly last summer.) Crabtree insists he did the right thing. "John's been saying I took Paulette's side, but I didn't. I took Sierra's side," he says. "If he wants to be upset that I said these things about his wife, then that's fine, but he shouldn't be telling people I made him out to be a bad guy because that's not true."

Remarkably, Daly has played some excellent golf through all of his travails, most notably in his first Tour win in nine years, at February's Buick Invitational. He arrived at Augusta ranked third on Tour in driving distance (303.6 yards) and second in putting (1.699 per green hit in regulation), and expected to contend for the green jacket.

Once play started, though, his putting faltered. He failed to make a putt longer than five feet -- which was not surprising since only a few minutes before teeing off on Thursday, Daly adjusted the loft on his putter by stepping on the clubhead and pushing against the shaft. Daly, who signed a new equipment deal with Dunlop in January, has also been experimenting with stiffer shafts in his irons, and he struggled with distance control on several approach shots.

He did not give up without a fight, though. On Friday, Daly made the turn at five over par, one above the projected cut, then birdied numbers 12 and 13. He followed with a three-putt bogey on the 14th, but a spectacular sand save at 16 put him in position to play on the weekend.

That hope was dashed by his disaster on 18. From the middle of the fairway Daly flew the green with his approach. Evidently thinking he needed to chip in for birdie to make the cut, Daly made an aggressive run from his downhill lie and left his ball 45 feet from the hole. Shortly after his two-putt bogey and sprint off the grounds, John was back in his RV with Sherrie headed for South Carolina, where he was scheduled to play in an outing with his favorite band, Hootie and the Blowfish, on Monday.

As night fell, Daly's employee and sometime caddie, Bryan Van Der Riet, was still in the Hooters' parking lot, working inside the Team Lion merchandise trailer. "John really wanted to play well," Van Der Riet said, shaking his head. "It has to be frustrating to fight all day and give it away at the last hole." Those would have to be the last words on Daly's week because the boss wasn't talking.

Issue date: April 19, 2004