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 Big John was bad -- and mad Daly bows out of British after brutal 10 on No. 18
Posted: Friday July 17, 1998 03:48 PM
SOUTHPORT, England (Reuters) - Ever the showman, John Daly bowed out of the British Open on Friday as only he could -- with a 10 at the 18th. But it was way short of the worst score he has ever turned in. He carded an 18 on a hole at the Bay Hill Classic in March. A par 4 or bogey 5 at the last at Royal Birkdale would have been enough to keep the 1995 champion in the tournament. Instead, he missed the halfway cut and was on his way home. Playing partners Payne Stewart and Bernhard Langer had to help big-hitting Daly calculate how many shots he had taken before they settled on the 10. "I said: 'John I've got to put a number in here that's right. I can't go just yes on what you're saying,'" Stewart said. He said Daly told him to mark down a 10. "That's what Bernhard and I thought he had made," Stewart said. The burly 32-year-old American drove into the first fairway bunker on the right, came out into the next bunker and proceeded, in Stewart's words, "to take five swishes at the ball" before escaping, this time into a greenside bunker. He blasted out and two-putted from 10 feet for a round of 78. At 11 over par for 36 holes, he was five shots outside the projected cut for the final two rounds. "He was in good shape. He was going to make the cut, he just hit the wrong shot," Stewart said, suggesting that Daly had tried his best on every shot. "When you hit it in those bunkers you just have to take your medicine. He was not a happy camper when he left here." Daly, a recovering alcoholic, has had bad holes before but his 18 at Bay Hill was the ultimate horror show. Daly hit six balls into the lake bordering the sixth hole in the final round there. He drove into the water, then walked 30 yards forward to where he could take a penalty drop and with his 3-wood failed to make the 270-yard carry with his next five balls. With his 13th shot he cleared the water but stopped in a soggy hazard from where he hacked on to the fairway. His 15th hit rocks next to the green and bounced into a bunker from where he blasted on to the green and two-putted. He was good-natured and chatty after the incident. But on Friday at Royal Birkdale he kept his own counsel.
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