Stupid is as stupid does, and there’s no denying John Daly’s admitted acts and their end results overwhelmingly qualify as such.
How else do you explain how a man who clearly has earned in excess of that much could now reflect upon losing up to $55 million casino gambling away what was once viewed as one of the PGA tour’s most promising careers.
Over his 16-year run, Daly has openly battled alcohol and substance abuse addictions, but clearly those were not his only demons.
“I was shocked, I thought it might have been $20 or $25 million, but I had no idea it was $55 to $57 million, it’s crazy,” Daly recently told reporters of his lifetime mind-boggling losses. “I love the action, I love the adrenaline going in there. I’ve played slots for two days in a row. I’ve played blackjack for two days in one sitting. The only time I’d get up is to go to the bathroom.”
So over-admittedly was Daly’s extravagant-lavishly lifestyle and pitiful addiction, he openly professes in his My Life and Out of the Rough autobiography he once earned $750,000 in a World Golf Championship face-off against Tiger Woods, only to have lost in excess of double that or $1.6 million in $5,000 a single-hit slot machine punches by nightfall by the end of that same day.
“Time goes by so fast and if you’re on a roll and you’re winning, I’d just keep on going, keep on playing,” said the 48-year-old Daly. “Now if I go and gamble, I go in and play the $25 slots. I’ve been up $5 million and ended up losing $2 million because I wouldn’t get up. People are going to say I should regret it. But I did it, I’ve moved on from it and I had a lot of fun doing it.”
Yet, in the next breath, Daly speaks of the “sheer stupidity” that propelled him to engage in such risky business. A way of thinking most all of us can clearly relate to, but the vast majority can never fully understand. Perhaps even Daly now among them.
“I go in to enjoy myself, I don’t go in to win. I want to win, but I don’t go in thinking that I’m going to win. Because that’s the worst thing you could do in a casino.”
John Daly says it all with a clear voice, but here is to hoping all the ghosts he’s surely heard from years past have finally come to resonate in ways that might make a difference in his heretofore uneven existence.
