© 2025 Connecticut Public

FCC Public Inspection Files:
WEDH · WEDN · WEDW · WEDY
WEDW-FM · WNPR · WPKT · WRLI-FM
Public Files Contact · ATSC 3.0 FAQ
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

John Daly, Golfing (and Living) His Own Way

Pro golfer John Daly tells <em>Fresh Air</em> that his high-school coach told him to start smoking — as a weight-loss strategy.
Doug Collier
/
AFP/Getty Images
Pro golfer John Daly tells Fresh Air that his high-school coach told him to start smoking — as a weight-loss strategy.

Pro golfer John Daly has won tournaments on five continents, including two of the PGA tour's four majors. He's also gambled away a couple of fortunes, trashed various hotel rooms, houses and cars, married four times, and downed enough booze to land himself in a string of emergency rooms and rehab clinics. These days, he says, he lives on Diet Coke and Marlboro Lights. "I guess you could say," Daly writes in his recent memoir, that "I'm not exactly a poster boy for moderation."

Daly's behavior has earned him fines and suspensions from the PGA, but fans adore him — in part because he's a plain-spoken Arkansas boy who doesn't try to cover up his flaws. Also because people love to watch him hit a ball: He's a huge bear of a man blessed with the flexibility of a fencer, and when he turns his shoulder into a swing and releases his power into a golf ball, it travels eye-popping distances.

In addition to that memoir — titled My Life In and Out of the Rough: The Truth Behind All that Bull**** You Think You Know About Me — Daly has just published a golfer's guide. The title, characteristically, is Golf My Own Damn Way: A Real Guy's Guide to Chopping Ten Strokes Off Your Score.

Copyright 2023 Fresh Air. To see more, visit Fresh Air.

Fund the Facts

You just read trusted, local journalism that’s free for everyone, thanks to donors like you.

If that matters to you, now is the time to give. Join the 50,000+ members powering honest reporting and a more connected — and civil! — Connecticut.

SOMOS CONNECTICUT is an initiative from Connecticut Public, the state’s local NPR and PBS station, to elevate Latino stories and expand programming that uplifts and informs our Latino communities. Visit CTPublic.org/latino for more stories and resources. For updates, sign up for the SOMOS CONNECTICUT newsletter at ctpublic.org/newsletters.

SOMOS CONNECTICUT es una iniciativa de Connecticut Public, la emisora local de NPR y PBS del estado, que busca elevar nuestras historias latinas y expandir programación que alza y informa nuestras comunidades latinas locales. Visita CTPublic.org/latino para más reportajes y recursos. Para noticias, suscríbase a nuestro boletín informativo en ctpublic.org/newsletters.

Fund the Facts

You just read trusted, local journalism that’s free for everyone, thanks to donors like you.

If that matters to you, now is the time to give. Join the 50,000+ members powering honest reporting and a more connected — and civil! — Connecticut.