PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. (AP) John Daly got the Wanamaker Trophy for winning the PGA Championship in 1991, the Claret Jug for overpowering St. Andrews to win the British Open fours years later.

The prize he covets more than anything right now is a coin.

He has close to 80 of them, mementos given to him by recovering alcoholics that designate the anniversary of their last drink. Daly uses them to mark his ball on the green, a constant reminder of where he has been, that he is not alone and to take it one day at a time.

He gets his own one-year coin March 28.

"It will be like winning a major," Daly said.

His tumultuous career hit rock bottom a year ago this week.

After starting The Players Championship with a 76, Daly partied at a Jacksonville Beach bar, trashed his hotel room when his wife Paulette walked out on him and wound up in a hospital fearing for his life.

The damage to the room was estimated at $1,000. He paid an even greater price in his personal life.

While Daly was in a Betty Ford clinic during the Masters, Paulette filed for divorce. By the end of the month, Wilson Golf terminated his lucrative contract. By the end of the year, Reebok decided not to renew its deal.

One year after his drunken spree, a new Daly has emerged.

He might be playing better than ever and is certainly more consistent. Even when he was winning, you never knew which Daly would show up - the major championship winner or the guy who was 168th in final-round scoring average last year.

This year, Daly has been under par in every tournament, in the top-20 in five consecutive events and fourth the past two times.

The $279,250 won in six events this year is only $1,069 less than he earned in 40 tournaments the previous two years.

Mentally and physically, off the course and inside the ropes, Daly says his game and his life have never been in better shape.

"It's an awesome feeling," he said.

He is spending more time practicing than ever. After a second-round 76 at the Honda Classic two weeks ago, he hit balls until dark.

"It only takes 20 minutes to eat," he said. ``I used to go to the bar and get smashed for 12 hours. Now, I don't have anything else to do. I play the guitar, but that's no fun because I only know two or three songs."

The old Daly would have given up after starting a round with bogeys on four of the first five holes.

"I'd have been home," he said. ``It wouldn't have been a 76, it would have been more like an 80. But I've started believing in myself more. When you give up, you just don't believe in yourself, and I've been there.

"Now when I get mad, I get hungrier to play well. My mind has never thought like it does now. It could be maturity. I'm a late-maturing person. Nobody gave me a book on how to do things the right way."

Daly began drinking when he was 8 and first entered alcohol rehab in December 1992, shortly after being charged with third-degree assault on his ex-wife, Bettye.

Even during a 3½-year stretch of sobriety, he was as unpredictable as he was entertaining.

The first tournament he won while sober was the BellSouth Classic in 1994. He won the British Open a year later, the first player since Tom Watson to win two majors in his 20s.

But there also were times where he walked off the course in the middle of a round or failed to sign his card. If Daly was out of a tournament, a final round played under three hours was not uncommon.

The sobriety ended in Sweden on Aug. 2, 1996.

"I want a drink, that's basically what I said," Daly said. ``It was like I had never stopped drinking. It didn't take long before I doubled what I used to drink."

He conceded that by October he was drinking again, calling it "social." By the time he arrived for The Players Championship, his drinking was as prolific as ever.

It started with a few drinks at Sloppy Joe's, a beach-side bar. Before long, Daly was on stage singing with the band. Three hours later, friends helped him out the door.

When he arrived back at his hotel, Paulette said she had had enough and was leaving with their 1-year-old daughter.

"I want to remember that night the rest of my life, how bad it was," Daly said last year upon his return from alcohol rehab. "If I could do that, it's going to get me through a tough day."

The difference this time is his aftercare program, a stipulation when Callaway Golf signed him. Last year at the Honda Classic, Daly said he didn't like to go to meetings to hear other people's sob stories.

This year at the Honda, he went to three meetings in seven days.

Still, the road back hasn't always been smooth.

Daly walked off the course at the U.S. Open after nine holes of the second round with a severe case of the shakes, although he didn't bother telling his partners.

At the PGA Championship, he sent his driver whirling over a fence after hitting a poor drive in the third round.

"I was ready to play golf, but I wasn't prepared to play in a major," he says now.

Daly looks like he is ready to challenge every week now, although he refuses to look beyond the next day. Not a day has passed that he hasn't felt a slight urge to drink.

When he checks into a hotel, the first thing he does is thumb through the Yellow Pages to find an AA meeting. If he's not at a meeting, he's on the phone with someone in his support circle.

"If I keep doing the things I'm doing on a daily basis, I would estimate I would win this year," he said. "That's not a cocky way of saying I'm going to win, but I think working hard and doing the things I'm doing off the golf course is going to pay off.

"And if it doesn't, just waking up every day I'm a winner."

He has to be considered a contender at the Masters - he leads Tiger Woods in driving distance and has a beautiful touch around the greens, a perfect combination for Augusta National.

Daly didn't see Woods win last year because the Betty Ford clinic didn't have television sets, and "I was worried more about what was going on in my life than what was going on there," he said.

Still, he allowed himself to consider he and Woods tied for the lead at the Masters heading into the back nine.

"I know Tiger would love it, and I would love it if we come down to the last day at Augusta together," he said. "It would be wonderful.''

Daly has an important week ahead of him at the Players Championship. Sloppy Joe's bar is still there. He plans to stay in the same hotel.

But he doesn't expect to be haunted by his past, rather challenged to follow the words of advice sewn onto his bag: Keep it straight.

"I don't know how I'm going to play, but just giving myself a chance to go to the right place to get a coin instead of going somewhere else will be a positive," he said. "Knowing that I'm sober, that's a great, great feeling.''