Apr19 Daly inChina
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He might be aged over 40, have recently injured his ribs simply by swinging a club and have a world ranking of 231, but big-hitting John Daly thinks his best golfing years are still to come.
The charismatic two-time major winner, in Shanghai for the BMW Asian Open, has made just three cuts out of nine tournaments this year, with his best performance a tied for 22nd at the US PGA’s Nissan Open in February.
Nevertheless, Daly said Wednesday he had no thoughts of giving the game away and was looking to Vijay Singh, who has enjoyed the best years of his career since turning 40, for inspiration.
“I just look at Vijay. He’s won 28 times in the four or five years since he turned 40,” said Daly, who turns 41 on April 28 and has in the past battled off-course problems associated with gambling and alcohol.
“I wouldn’t be playing if I didn’t think I could still do it and hopefully the best years are still ahead of me.”
Daly is one of golf’s larger-than-life characters who enjoys writing music and playing the guitar when not ripping massive drives on golf courses around the world.
He once recorded an album entitled “My Life” that featured a host of big names in the music world, including country and western great Willie Nelson and Hootie and the Blowfish frontman Darius Rucker.
But Daly laughed at suggestions from a local reporter that he might be considering a career in “entertainment” rather than golf, now that he was getting older.
“I suck at guitar. I’ll stick to golf,” he said.
Daly only recently returned to competitive golf after injuring a rib and one of his shoulders while trying to stop his swing after being distracted by a spectator’s camera click at the Honda Classic at the beginning of March.
But he saw a tied for 36th at last week’s Verizon Heritage tournament in South Carolina as a positive sign that hopefully sets a platform for an even better performance this week in Shanghai,
“I’m going to feed off the way hit the ball last week … I’m going to feed off the confidence,” said Daly, who will be up against the likes of Ernie Els, Retief Goosen, Paul Casey and Colin Montgomerie in Shanghai.
