News And Notes

Daly Takes His First Step Back

Call it good planning or just good luck, but John Daly's comeback at last week's Canon Greater Hartford Open couldn't have turned out any better. Although he was never in contention—the tournament was won by Tour rookie Stewart Cink—Daly drew the largest galleries at the TPC at River Highlands in Cromwell, Conn.

He was greeted warmly by fans eager to show they were rooting for him to lick the alcoholism and other problems that have brought him to the brink of ruin on several occasions. Daly responded with a 70-71-67-68-276, four under par, for a 21st-place finish, nine shots behind Cink but one up on his demons. "I love these people," Daly said. "This has been a really sweet week."

It was the public's first glimpse of Daly since the U.S. Open at Congressional, where he walked off the course midway through the second round without saying a word to his caddie or his playing partners. "He got the shakes so bad that it scared him," says Fuzzy Zoeller, Daly's best friend on Tour. But the shakes didn't come from alcohol—Daly had spent six weeks at the Betty Ford Clinic in Palm Springs, Calif., during the spring after a drinking binge caused him to drop out of the Players Championship—but as a result of his diet and medication. So between his Open walkout and his appearance at Hartford, Daly cut back his intake of Diet Coke from 20 cans a day to "two or three," stopped taking an antidepressant medication and began eating more sensibly. The most visible result is that he has lost almost 40 pounds and weighs about 195.

The new Daly—or, at least, the latest new Daly—also is using a three-wood on many holes instead of a driver, giving up a little distance for accuracy. "I was really pretty conservative here," Daly said on Sunday at Hartford. "I went for the middle of greens instead of the pins. It was nice to get back in the groove of things."

Daly will skip this week's Sprint International outside Denver but will play in the Buick Open and the PGA Championship. He also says that he won't play more than two consecutive weeks for the rest of the year, giving him more time to work on himself.

"I don't know what's going to happen tomorrow," Daly says. "It's a tough battle. My disease is such that I can go down to the liquor store and buy my death if I want to. I've just got to keep plugging along."

Cink's Victory Leaves Maggert Seeing Red

When 24-year-old Tour rookie Stewart Cink mentioned, after winning in Hartford, that Tom Kite was his idol, a few writers giggled. "Was that funny?" Cink asked blankly. Told that he could be accused of brown-nosing since Kite is the captain of this year's Ryder Cup team, Cink laughed and said, "Oh, yeah, did I mention that Lanny Wadkins [the 1995 captain] was my favorite player two years ago?"

There's no shot, of course, that Kite would make Cink one of his two captain's picks for the U.S. team. The same probably applies to Jeff Maggert, considering the way he played down the stretch in the U.S. Open (five over on the last six holes) and at Hartford (one drive in the water and two in the rough on Sunday's last five holes).