By Ron Sirak

AP Golf Writer

PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. (AP) As John Daly walked from the 12th green to the 13th tee at The Players Championship on Thursday, a man with a shaved head and wrap-around sunglasses worked his way to the gallery ropes and called out to him.

"Did you get the coin, John?" the man asked.

Daly stopped in his tracks, turned and grabbed the stranger's hand.

"Yeah man," Daly said. ``Thanks.''

The coin was one of the many Daly has received from other recovering alcoholics marking anniversaries of their sobriety. The man who gave him this coin was Dave Browning, sober for 12 years now and out to cheer for Daly on the first anniversary of his last drunk.

The 1-under-par 71 Daly shot in the opening round was far better than the 76 he started with last year. And there seemed to be no chance he would spend hours drinking at Sloppy Joe's bar, then trashing his hotel room, as he did a year ago after the first round.

"I'm just thankful I'm here," Daly said after a scrambling 33 marked by great chipping on the first nine holes was undermined by an errant sand wedge into the water on his 13th hole, resulting in a double bogey.

"I was nervous," Daly said, a gold angel pin on the right collar of his shirt gleaming as if it were looking out for him. "It's a good round to get over."

Thursday night also was a good night to get behind him. With Friday's second round - the round Daly never got to play last year, heading instead for alcohol rehabilitation - Daly swings into his second year of sobriety.

"A lot of times it takes the big catastrophe," Browning said about Daly seeming to turn his life around. "That's what John had here last year. Sometimes it takes something like that to wake you up."

Browning, a 36-year-old member of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes who works with students at First Coast High School in Jacksonville, knows about the big catastrophe.

"When I was a teen-ager, I got into some bad habits, got in with the wrong crowd," Browning said. "It was a combination of drugs and alcohol. I've been sober for about 12 years now. I had my catastrophe."

Browning, who plays golf twice a month and has been a Daly fan for about four years, said people have a special affection for Daly because they see him as one of them.

"He is an ordinary guy like everyone else," Browning said. ``We live day to day, paycheck to paycheck. Now John is struggling day to day. Rooting for John is like rooting for your next door neighbor."

Daly is clearly feeding off the enormous positive energy he is getting from the galleries.

"He's having fun playing golf and that's nice for us to see," said Ben Crenshaw, captain of the next U.S. Ryder Cup team. "He comes to the course excited every day."

Seemingly with each round Daly shows more patience and more maturity, as he did last week when he followed an 18 on one hole with a birdie 2 on the next.

At the same time, that 18 also demonstrated how close to the surface Daly's irrational side remains. He could have bailed out and taken the safe route instead of running up the big number.

On Thursday, Daly scrambled determinedly, using only 11 putts on the first nine and showing a delicate chipping touch time and again.

On the 582-yard ninth hole he displayed his crowd-pleasing power when a 2-iron from 276 yards reached the fringe of the green.

A year ago, when things started going badly for him, Daly would have been thinking about that first beer.

"I believe this is his year. It's like Dale Earnhart," Browning said about the veteran driver who finally won the Daytona 500 this year. "Earnhart had to get his guts back after that wreck. John has had his wreck, too."

One year after that wreck, Daly is back at The Players Championship and he seems to be on the right road this time.