COOLUM, Australia -- John Daly will add the Australian PGA to his stay in Australia next month, keen to make amends for his stormy exit from the tournament on his last trip Down Under.
In November 2002, playing a week after his mother died, the two-time major winner threw his putter and ball into the lake on the 18th green after a 78 in the Australian PGA at Coolum, where he received a $200,000 appearance fee.
He was disqualified for failing to sign his card and fined $5,600 and ordered to write an apology to a tour official he verbally abused. A scuba diver retrieved the ball and putter and it has been mounted in the pro shop at the Hyatt Regency Coolum course in Queensland state.
Australian PGA organizers announced Friday that Daly would play the championship at Coolum a week after playing the Australian Masters at Huntingdale in southern Victoria state.
"Given I am coming to Australia for the Masters I was very keen to head back to Queensland and play the PGA Championship again," Daly, who is playing the Hong Kong Open this week, said in a statement. "As a former (U.S.) PGA Champion I have a real allegiance to the PGA.
"I have many close friends in Australia and look forward to seeing them as well as a whole bunch of my loyal Australian fans in Coolum."
PGA of Australia chief executive Max Garkse said Daly contacted organizers about playing again at Coolum.
"He explained that he was keen to make amends for his last departure and accordingly we are pleased to invite him back," Garske said. "John is a talented golfer and we know the Queensland crowds will welcome him back and will want to see him do well."
Daly will join leading Australian players Geoff Ogilvy, Adam Scott, Peter Lonard, Stuart Appleby and Robert Allenby in the field in the Dec. 4-7 tournament.
Daly has had problems before in Australia.
In February, 1997 at the Heineken Classic, Daly shot a third-round 83 and then played the final round in just 2 hours, 10 minutes, angering tournament officials who had paid him a large appearance fee.
Daly has also had his problems off the course in the U.S. this year, spending a night in jail on Oct. 27 after being found "extremely intoxicated and uncooperative," police said, outside a Hooters restaurant in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.
He has not had a PGA Tour card since his 2006, when his two-year exemption expired from his last victory at the Buick Invitational in 2004. He made only five cuts in 17 starts on the PGA Tour this year and earned $56,000. His world ranking has slipped to 788.
Daly won the 1991 U.S. PGA Championship and 1995 British Open.
