Daly turns around life, shows heart

LOS ANGELES — During a charity golf tournament last week in Rancho Cucamonga, John Daly spent much of the day cracking jokes and exchanging back slaps with celebrities, booming drive after drive down the 14th fairway to raise money for seriously ill children.

But when he started talking about the kids, his mood shifted.

The larger-than-life, self-proclaimed “Wild Thing” became meek and his droopy eyes filled with sadness. He stuffed one hand in his jeans pocket while the other gently cradled a cigarette, and he began brushing the grass with his foot.

“My problems are small compared to what those kids are going through,” Daly said in an interview at Red Hill Country Club. “And all they do is smile when you see them. The sad thing is we lose a lot of them, but you still think that there’s hope and that they’re going to come out of it. That’s what this is all about. It’s about making a child smile and hoping that a miracle will come out of it.”

Daly, 38, a five-time winner on the PGA Tour, is best known for long drives and even longer nights on the town. But while trashed hotel rooms, drinking binges, gambling debts and failed marriages make headlines, they tell only part of Daly’s story. He said helping children has helped him with his own dilemmas, and those close to him say his charity work tells more about the real Daly than media reports about a troubled soul.

“With his past, if he has any kind of hiccup or bump in the road, it gets blasted all over the place,” said Hank Kuehne, a tour pro who has become close friends with Daly. “He’s got this big stigma about him, but if you actually sit down and talk to the guy and really get to know him, you really see him in a different light.”

He’s a sports fan and music lover and has the memorabilia to prove it. His collection includes 200 sports jerseys from professional athletes such as Drew Brees and Roger Clemens and 78 guitars from musicians such as Alice Cooper, Eddie Van Halen and Willie Nelson.

He’s a former winner of the local punt, pass and kick competition and later became a field-goal kicker on his high school team in Missouri. His nickname, “the Lion,” came from a local newspaper headline after Daly kicked a game-winning field goal.

He’s also a clean freak. Sherrie Daly, his fourth wife, jokingly calls him “Sleeping with the Enemy” – a reference to a character in that movie who is obsessed with neatness.

“He cleans everything,” Sherrie said. “He does the laundry, he’s a chronic vacuumer; it’s hilarious.”

Daly’s biggest obsession, however, is charity, according to those close to him.

Patricia Brown, executive director of the John Daly Charitable Foundation and a friend of Daly, estimated that he has helped raise more than $4 million for charity in the last 11 years and has contributed about $500,000 out of his pocket.

Daly gets personally involved, spending many hours visiting kids in hospitals and aiding the Make-a-Wish Foundation.

The $100-a-drive fees that Daly collected at his tournament last week helped fulfill a wish for Cameron Rogers, 8, of Chino Hills, who has cancer and cerebral palsy. During the post-tournament party that night, he surprised Cameron with an expenses-paid trip to Disney World, a place the boy had read about while in the hospital.

The party featured celebrities such as Darius Rucker of Hootie and the Blowfish, baseball players Troy Glaus and Troy Percival, television analyst and former Los Angeles Dodger Rick Sutcliffe and former Dodger manager Tom Lasorda. NFL players past and present Marshall Faulk, Seth Joyner and Christian Okoye mingled with musicians Johnny Lee and Edwin McCain.

Daly sat off to the side, at a table with Mackinzie Kline, 12, of Encinitas, who has a congenital heart disorder.

“John is in a class by himself,” she said. “He really cares about kids and he helps a lot of them.”

When Daly won the Buick Invitational at Torrey Pines last year, it was his first tour victory since the 1995 British Open – ample cause for celebration. One of the first people he called was Mackinzie. Daly had met her a few days earlier during the pro-am and wanted her at his victory celebration.

“The kids motivate him,” said Brown, the head of his foundation. “He plays better after he meets them.”

Daly, who is participating in this week’s Nissan Open at Riviera Country Club, has acknowledged his alcoholism and has entered rehab programs three times. He has not given up drinking, though friends say he has cut down. As his charity party wore on, Daly took a beer on stage when he made announcements.

Daly once asked a little boy with a heart defect what he wanted for Christmas. The boy asked for a healthy heart, so Daly said, “OK, then what do you want for your birthday?”

The boy asked for a computer. About an hour later, Brown got a call on her cellphone. It was Daly at an electronics store wondering what kind of computer to buy the boy.

“He doesn’t do this stuff for show,” Brown said. “He really cares about the kids. He gets to know them and remembers their names.”