SOUTHPORT, England — Back for his first major since a not-bad-at-all 32nd-place showing in the 2007 PGA Championship, John Daly held a news conference Wednesday that simmered with resentment for swing coach Butch Harmon.
“I don’t know what the problem is, but he needs to stay as far away from me as he possibly can,” Daly said of Harmon, adding a curious if trivial subplot to the 137th British Open.
Daly, the 1995 champion and two-time major winner, still feels irked at comments Harmon made after ceasing work with Daly in March, claiming Daly valued carousing more than golf. “I think his lies kind of destroyed my life for a little bit,” Daly said.
The Associated Press, speaking to Harmon at the Royal Birkdale driving range, quoted Harmon as replying, “I’m sorry J.D. feels that way. I like J.D. He’s a good guy. But he needs to step up to the plate and take responsibility for his actions instead of blaming everybody else.”
Daly, who has missed nine of 12 cuts this year and 37 of his last 57 across three years, differs with Harmon about events at the PODS Championship in Tampa, Fla., in March. There, Daly returned to the course from the Hooters tent after a 2 1/2-hour rain delay with Tampa Bay Buccaneers Coach Jon Gruden as his caddie, which Harmon saw as unprofessional.
Daly said he had only soda in the tent, asked Gruden because his own caddie had a neck problem, and had “a few beers” Saturday in an autograph-signing there but only after missing the cut. His recent worries have included injuries and hoping that tournament directors will continue to give him sponsors’ exemptions because of his popularity.
“He just made up stuff that he really didn’t know the facts were straight, and by putting it all over the world and not talking to me, I mean, that’s kind of ridiculous,” Daly said. “Real men just don’t do that.”
As for the golf here, Daly, 42, will play against doctor’s orders, he said. “I’ve got tendinitis in my right elbow,” he said, “and I had a cyst on my right hand that was a calcium buildup that we thought was arthritis, so they got that out. So it’s just been one thing after another.”
He did say, “I’m eating too much, but I’m not hardly drinking at all, and I never go out. So it’s funny just to sit back and look at it. I guess that’s just the way my life is going to be for a long time because of my past.”
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