Daly show a mess, from heated tweets to tour silence

PALM BEACH GARDENS, Fla. -- John Daly doesn't push the envelope.

He pushes an entire manila folder, if not a legal briefcase.

Daly, who has done so many moronic and self-destructive things in two decades as a professional that there are more than 450 pages contained in his PGA Tour disciplinary file, has crossed yet another boundary.

John Daly just never seems to change his stripes. (Getty Images)

Daly late Tuesday night advocated the telephonic harassment of a Jacksonville, Fla., newspaper writer who earlier in the day detailed the staggering number of violations that Daly has amassed over his so-called career in a published story that has become the talk of the tour.

In a dimwitted double-whammy, the organization that has been indirectly complicit in Daly's actions over the years by allowing him to ply his trade has again elected to do what it does best -- stand mute as he besmirches the sport. Unlike with Daly's array of former wives, this is one marriage made in heaven.

On his Twitter site, Daly asked his fans to call the cell phone of Garry Smits, the golf writer at the Florida Times-Union, and swamp him with voice mail messages. Daly posted Smits' phone number twice on his Twitter page, called him a "JERK" and a "non-sports writer," asking fans to bury Smits with calls.

Daly's direction to his devotees could be certainly construed as a dangerous form of harassment, if not cyber-stalking.

"Call and flood his line and tell him how we really feel,"' Daly wrote on his account.

That's clearly a call to arms issued to people who, having eyeballed some of Daly's fans over the years, might own a Derringer or two. It's reckless, irresponsible and quite possibly legally actionable.

Daly knows all about the latter. He learned it the hard way.

He sued the Florida Times-Union several years ago, upset over a sports column that cast him in a bad light. (Editor's Note: The column in question was written by Mike Freeman of CBSSports.com, when he was with the Times-Union.) As part of the legal discovery process, the newspaper requested a copy of Daly's disciplinary file from the tour, which traditionally does not make such issues public nor discuss its disciplinary protocols. The contents of that report, which included the news that the tour had ordered Daly to undergo counseling or rehab seven times and had suspended him on five occasions, were published in the Jacksonville paper on Tuesday.

Daly, who launched a reality show on the Golf Channel on Tuesday night -- the hook of the series is that he's hoping for one last shot at redeeming himself professionally -- clearly didn't enjoy the attendant publicity or the timing of the story.

"To me, this isn't journalism, it's paparazzi-like gossip BS!" Daly posted on his account. "Please try harder to find some REAL news next time Gary [sic]."

Predictably, the tour declined to comment on the latest move by its resident bad boy. Reached early Wednesday morning, spokesman Ty Votaw indicated that he was not aware of Daly's latest behavioral issue but said the tour would not alter its stance of commenting on disciplinary matters. Even though Daly made it a very public case.

"We will discuss internally, but we will not be discussing publicly any disciplinary actions that may arise as a result of this," Votaw said in an e-mail.

Daly posted the Twitter entreaty to fans at around midnight. Smits said that as of late Tuesday night, he had already received several calls. He said he found Daly's latest dunderheaded move "amusing," although I might have opted for "pathetic."

Smits received 30 calls overnight. "A few left the predictable messages," he said.

The Daly fans ought to be examining their choice of heroes, not the work product of a newspaper reporting simple, documented, legally protected fact. Hilariously, the Daly file became public record only because of the lawsuit that Daly himself filed. The paper refused to settle, the case was eventually dismissed and Daly was ordered to pay the paper's legal fees.

Now we know why.

The Daly disciplinary file was stunning in its size, including reams of details about incidents of which the public was not aware. That stands to reason, since the image-paranoid tour does not acknowledge disciplinary sanctions, much less discuss suspension or fines.

In one of the more eviscerating paragraphs ever printed with regard to a tour player, the Times-Union reported Tuesday: "His personnel file at the PGA Tour swelled to 456 pages, with incidents covering 18 years, through the fall of 2008. Daly was fined nearly $100,000 during that span, suspended from the Tour five times, placed on probation six times, cited 11 times for 'conduct unbecoming a professional' and 21 times for 'failure to give best efforts.'"

Once again, the tour's disciplinary stance has rightly been called into question. Amazingly, despite a litany of offenses that would make most rank-and-file players retch, Daly has been fined an average of $5,555 annually over his 18-year career for his various stunts. Clearly, he isn't getting the message. With that laughable dollar total, it's easy to understand why.

As any parent knows, sometimes a child needs to be figuratively paddled in the public square for a point to be made and behavior to be modified, and the tour's asinine policy of dealing with issues behind closed doors -- PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem and his staff have the autonomy to levy fines according to a largely subjective measure -- needs to be dynamited. It's the hickory shaft of sports-league disciplinary codes.

The newspaper gave Daly two weeks to explain the contents of the disciplinary file and he never responded until after the story was published.

A member of the tour's Player Advisory Committee learned of Daly's eye-popping disciplinary file after the story was published and expressed surprise that he had been fined such a small amount, given the totality of the grievances.

"And we just raised the fine levels a few years ago," the player said.

According to the player, the largest fine that can be assessed to a tour player is $30,000. Daly's file indicated that he has been levied that amount only once, after he hit golf balls over the heads of spectators at a clinic, apparently thinking it was funny.

The annualized math for Daly is comical. Same for the tour, which over the past few years has produced around 100 guys with $1 million in on-course earnings for the season.

Daly could spend $5,500 on one hand of blackjack. The tour could have fined me that amount annually over the past 18 years and I would have laughed at them, and I earn a fraction of his annual haul. Daly has made $9.1 million in on-course earnings alone and probably double that sum for the outside endorsements he has frittered away over the years. He is no longer an exempt member of the tour, but has received dozens of sponsor exemptions over the years because of his inexplicable popularity.

It's one thing to have flaws or addiction demons or four ex-wives. It's another to be a vindictive moron. Daly is the not-so-grand slam. Why is he upset? His travails are finally public, which should have been the case all along. Now, as Daly is trying to resurrect his saleable image on the reality show, his endorsement potential just dwindled to nil because the facts of his life have come to light.

By Wednesday morning, members of the Golf Writers Association of America were already discussing how to proceed in light of the harassment of one of its members. Frankly, it's the tour that should be admonishing Daly in public, since he dragged his laundry into the public square on Twitter.

But the tour will expect us to trust its judgment on this. You know, because it has done such a fine job of correcting Daly's behavior over the years. Sometimes, the benevolent dictator route just doesn't work.

Smits wrote that in one high-profile instance contained in Daly's disciplinary file, he nearly ran over an official with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco & Firearms (hey, Daly is conversant in at least two of those areas) at the U.S. Open five years ago. Despite multiple official statements from authorities who witnessed the incident, the Times-Union reported that the PGA Tour took no action and chalked it up as a case of "mistaken identity." The tour covered it up, in other words.

Clearly, Daly's cyber-stalking of a reporter doing his job is crossing the line. But at some point, the tour must be held responsible for continuing to let this guy ply his trade and for failing to modify his behavior. The psychobabble term is that the tour is an enabler.

It needs to be a disabler.

The tour policy on discipline is an antiquated joke, the vestiges of a flawed philosophy that dates back to an earlier era. Tour players are, as a rule, a decent bunch, but as Daly and other prominent players have proved, these angels sometimes have dirty faces. Covering up the deeds of players is ripping off fans and sponsors, too. The tour is sometimes selling a tainted bill of goods.

We've been ripping the tour for its small-minded policy for so long, it's like we're beating a dead Shetland Pony -- and that's not a Finchem-related height joke. Necessarily.

As for Daly, the tour's ineffective sanctions are more like beating a donkey. This one happens to bray on Twitter.