John Daly’s - Golf My Own Damn Way - A Review
Review by Michael Shandrick
A Real Guy’s Guide to Chopping Ten Strokes Off Your Score, HarperCollins Publishers, New York, 2007.
By John Daly, with Glenn Waggoner
The cover of Golf My Own Damn Way epitomizes the renegade allure of John Daly: quintessentially finishing a swing with a cigarette in his mouth. But don’t let Daly’s self-deprecating demeanor fool you. With 158 pages of anecdotes and tips on grip, stance, posture and aim, his latest book is a serious analysis of pre-game warm-ups, practice sessions and pre-shot routines all aimed at making us average guys and gals — who shoot between 90 and 119 on our better days – into better golfers.
More than an instructional manual, Golf My Own Damn Way is as close as we’ll come to having a conversation with Daly, and he answers most of the questions we’d probably love to ask him and those he doesn’t want to hear again. What about those gizmos to improve our game? “Bullshit.” What putter do you recommend? “Once you find yourself a good woman hang on to her. You never know what fresh hell you’re in for if you trade her in for a new model.” How do we improve our scores? “Take lessons.” Can we learn how to play golf from this book? “Don’t buy this book to learn about golf. Take lessons first.” Why can’t tour players just wear Bermuda shorts? “Good question.”
I got the idea that Daly wrote the book because he may end up playing with us at a charity pro-am event and he’d like us to bring our “A” game. He doesn’t like slow play. “Call the game after five hours and if you have three holes left, give yourself a birdie and two pars.” In fact, he’d like it mandatory that each tournament player has to drive their own carts to speed up the game.
Daly shares stories about his favorite course, best hole, worst experience, and provides some of his favorite quotes, including one from his playing partner, Glen Waggoner. “Keep your eye on the club. There’s nothing more embarrassing than to throw a club and then have to ask a playing partner where it went.”
For those wondering if Daly mentions his very public dispute with his wife this summer, he does.
Unlike Daly’s Grip It and Rip It: John Daly’s Guide to Hitting the Ball Farther Than You Ever Have Before with John Andrisan, Golf My Own Damn Way takes a departure from the grip it and rip it style of hitting a driver off the tee. “Use a 3-wood.” What?! “This book is about shaving strokes off the first four holes.” How do I avoid a slice off the tee? “Set up on the far right and aim left.” How can we get more power? “Listen to inside of your back foot.” Are you sure we should use a 3-wood off the first tee? “Yes, leave the driver in the trunk, guys.” How come you take your driver so far back on your backswing? I can imagine him saying, “Buy the book.”
To his credit, Daly finished Golf My Own Way during one of the worst years in his career. Last March at the Honda Classic, he tried to hold up his mammoth 135-mile an hour swing after a spectator snapped a picture of him mid-swing. He separated his ribs and shoulder, which cost him three months on the Tour. In November 2007 Daly withdrew from a tournament in Florida after completing the third round, which included a quadruple-bogey, his third of the season. He entered 24 events on tour this year and finished only eight, missing 10 cuts. Now you can understand why Daly wants it mandatory that people in galleries leave their cell phones and cameras at home even if it means a strip search to enforce a ban on all these devices.
Yet, with all the distractions, Daly still made it to the leader board for a day at both the British Open and the Professional Golfers’ Association (PGA) Championships, giving those of us at home and in the gallery hope he could once again win these major championships.
For nearly twenty years John Daly remains one of the most popular gallery attractions in modern golf, especially among those who want the experience of seeing his towering drives off the tee in person. Yet this laconic posturing belies a genuine work ethic aimed at making us better and having some fun playing golf.
