By Mike Kahn
CBS SportsLine Executive Editor
Aug. 27, 1998

Now is not the time to dump on John Daly. Every televised sports report in America over the next few days will show him meandering around the 15th green at the Greater Vancouver Open with his arms folded and tears rolling down his cheeks in a fit of shakes.

Those emotions that Daly wore on his sleeve in the past have now officially left the premises. He needs help just to restore a semblance of daily security to his system. Right now, there is none and with a professional golfer so vividly in the public eye, somebody needs to get him into a psychological setting that will secure his life.

John Daly is still trying to warm to the idea of living without alcohol. (AP)

Plenty of people have grown tired of his act -- jumping on and off the alcoholic wagon -- with too much speculation in between. He drank exorbitant amounts of alcohol that produced dangerous consequences for himself and others, ate himself silly and puffed on so many cigarettes during a round of golf that smoke followed him as if he's a re-creation of Charles Shulz's Pigpen. That's all part of the background.

THAT DID NOTHING TO DIMINISH his following. Daly loves the crowds. The crowds love him. Golf is so filled with dull personalities, if only because it requires so much focus, it only accentuated how he became a refreshing accident waiting to happen. As much as you would want to be put out by a man of Daly's tenuous character, he is just one lovable guy.

"It's awesome," Daly said before the PGA Championship earlier in the month. "I think a lot of fans relate because a lot of them go through what I'm going through. I love 'em. I love playing for them."

The only problem is, they can't help him cope with life and the pressures that go along with it. Remember, this is a guy with so much talent, he admittedly won the PGA in 1991 "drunk off my ass," and the British Open, "when I was miserable not drinking." This is not reason for resentment or an outpouring of sentiment. Daly is an example of how a guy can make $389,174 during a year of uneven golf and barely complete his round Thursday with a three-over 74.

The key here is he finished. He has said he wants more than anything else to win a golf tournament "clean and sober." What we found out Thursday and, honestly, all of this year, is he's still incapable of that. His enormous skills are precluded by a head that won't let him be steady. It's why his new hero is Jeff Gordon, the superstar of auto racing. Why couldn't it be Kahlil Gibran or Gandhi? Well, the answer to that is obvious: there's no getting around who John Daly is.

"I love football and I love Jeff Gordon," Daly said. "There's a little craziness in both of those sports. All he needs to do is get me in my Mercedes at home, teach me how to outrun cops. At least I don't have to worry about blowing into anything anymore (for a sobriety test)."

YOU SEE, THAT'S WHAT JOHN DALY IS all about and maybe that's why golf is driving him crazy. A man with his instincts belongs on the football field or in the Daytona 500 -- not contemplating an eight-foot putt that could cost him $250,000. Sure, there is something to golf that is hustling -- but that's off the beaten track in private clubs and public links far from the adoring crowds and the ever-burgeoning media.

Thursday, witnesses at the tournament said he was shaking so badly he couldn't even sip his diet soda that helps keep him going during the round. Despite the thermometer reading 86 degrees in Vancouver, he had to put on two jackets in an attempt to overcome the chills in his body. Playing partners Corey Pavin and David Frost felt for him and tried to comfort him enough to finish the round.

At this point, it doesn't matter whether or not he has remained as clean as the reports have said, or whether the source of his present state is alcohol withdrawal or a nervous breakdown.

We are watching a rather endearing man fall apart before the eyes of the golfing nation. This is no time to take swipes at him or drop-kick him into the has-been file. He has spent all year on the edge of success and failure. He lost control at Bay Hill and the British Open, but still the people hung with him. If Tiger Woods is the Paul McCartney of this golfing generation, then John Daly is Mick Jagger.

Hopefully, he will get help. Despite some earlier feelings to the contrary, golf can use Daly and everybody knows Daly desperately needs golf.

Just because he isn't a role model doesn't mean he shouldn't have help to succeed.

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