84 LUMBER CLASSIC

September 12, 2006

John Daly

TODD BUDNICK: We thank John Daly for stopping in at the 2006 84 Lumber Classic, John pretty much the unofficial host of this tournament as a Tour member and your friendship with the Hardies. Why don't you just talk about coming back here this year.

JOHN DALY: Well, it's a great week but it's kind of sentimental. In a way kind of sad, too, that this is the last year. Again, Joe and Maggie and all the staff at 84 Lumber have gone tenfold out of the way to make us all happy and stuff like they always do. You know, I've heard nothing but great things about this tournament and how the players are going to miss it. I know I'm going to miss it.

You just kind of sit and figure out what's Mr. Hardy going to do with this beautiful media center, the tournament office and all that stuff now. But I'm always excited to come here. I come up here probably 10 or 15 times a year, some to do corporate outings, some just to get away.

On the players' side of everything, we're going to miss this tournament tremendously. This is the best tournament for spoiling the players, and that's just hats off to Dad and Sis on that one.

TODD BUDNICK: Talk about your season. I know it hasn't been one that you had hoped for at this point. Kind of assess where your game is today, I guess.

JOHN DALY: Rusty. It's just been one of those years with injuries and been sick. Early in the year, what went on with Sherrie and stuff, it's been one of those years that nothing has gone right, and I haven't really had the opportunity to practice. The last three weeks I've had pneumonia, bronchitis and a viral infection, and before that it was a back, late last year it was my hand that got broke. So it's just been a year where I haven't been able to prepare myself the way I normally do.

Yesterday was the fourth time I've played golf in three weeks since the PGA. It's tough to compete when you can't get healthy.

TODD BUDNICK: How difficult is that from a mental standpoint? Everybody goes through that at some point in time in their career. You know you've got more out there in your game, but there's other factors.

JOHN DALY: The mental part is okay, but when you're not able to practice around the greens and chip and putt like I normally do I don't hit a ton of balls, but I do chip and putt a lot. That's the thing that goes first. Physically I feel this is the third day in a row that I've actually felt good, and that's been pretty much since the Tuesday after the PGA. So hopefully by Thursday I'll find some kind of rhythm and try and get around the course and maybe just try and get around something under par and maybe build my confidence, because this game is confidence.

Q. You say you come here to unwind. What's your idea of unwinding?

JOHN DALY: You just come here and relax. There's so much to do here, more or less just to maybe take the Hummer trails. You can go just enjoy the facility, just anything you really want to do. But more or less, me, I can come here what's kind of a getaway for me is just come here and do nothing (laughing), just kind of hang out and say hi to everybody and just kind of relax and just kind of get away from everything. It's got everything, but if you don't want to do anything, you don't have to, and it's kind of nice.

Q. You've played the course since the changes a couple times. What are your impressions?

JOHN DALY: It's tremendous. I mean, the golf course, what Joe has done to it, and Maggie, is they've made it one of the best golf courses on Tour. 11 is still a hole that I think in the future, me and Dad and Pete, we were going to change it somewhat, but there's no way it could have been done if we were going to have a tournament next year, but we've added the tee box on 13, we've added water on 13, the tee box on 1 we added. Other than that, there hasn't been a lot of significant changes since last year. He did a lot of changes.

But the golf course is perfect. The greens are perfect. There's not anything that anybody can really gripe about the course because it's in immaculate shape.

Q. What was the plan for 11?

JOHN DALY: Well, we were going to sit and talk. I mean, there's a lot of water there and a lot of rocks, and we were going to talk about how we could make that hole if a guy hits it long and hits it a little right, he gets penalized. I wanted to make it to where somehow there's a way we either move the tee way up and make it one hell of a par 4 with a wider fairway, to make it to where guys can it wouldn't be such a blind shot. But the hole is in good shape. It's just a tough hole. It's out of character with the rest of the holes here.

Q. I know you've played with Michelle here before a couple times. Her chances here? I mean, she admits it's an awfully long course for her. Does she have a chance?

JOHN DALY: It is awfully long for her, and she's probably practicing going, God, why does it have to rain, because it's going to make it longer. Michelle is learning, and what a great venue to do it at. The course is long for her, there's no doubt about it. But she hits a lot of fairways, and she's going to have a lot of long clubs into the greens, and her short game is going to have to be on. We're excited to have her here. She's going to draw a lot of ticket sales, raise a lot of money for charity, and I hope she does play well.

I've gotten to know her a little bit, her parents a little bit. She's a wonderful kid, that's what she is, and she's a phenom. It's going to be interesting when she starts winning a ton of LPGA events.

I think if she had won a few LPGA events, I think her chances of having more confidence playing against us might be a little better, but you never know. She's a hell of a ball striker.

Q. Is she doing it the right way? She gets criticized for doing this before winning at her own level on the LPGA.

JOHN DALY: If you have the opportunity to do something in life like this, you've got to take advantage of it, and it's something that she wants to do, and I think it's something her parents want her to do. The long haul of her career, I don't know if her goal I don't think she's ever said it. If she wants to play the men's Tour, I don't know if that's what she wants to do or not. I think she enjoys competing with us because she hits it so much further than most of the girls on her Tour, and then she's kind of doesn't quite hit it as far as we do.

I don't know what her ultimate goal is. I would think it would be to win a lot of LPGA events, but I would think deep down in her mind, she's going to compete on our Tour and try to because she knows she can. It's got to be tough for her, but she's still trying, and I think she wants to maybe be the first person to make a cut in a men's event on U.S. soil. I don't know what her goals are, but I know she feels like she can play against us, and why not? If she has the opportunity, let her.

Q. You were starting to make some strides last year, then the injuries and the illnesses, is it all disappointing to you because it's taken you a big step back, or where are you?

JOHN DALY: It's taking a big step back because you can't get behind with these guys, as good as they are. My goal was to make the Ryder Cup team, and with my injuries I didn't have a chance. If the Ryder Cup was the year before, I think I would have been on three of them. But I've always played great the first year instead of the second year, and it's killed me. That was a goal of mine.

I got off to a decent start last year, I played pretty good, wasn't way up there on the points but I wasn't far from getting in there, and I dedicated this whole year to playing the Ryder Cup. That's something I want to do, and I made a goal of it and the injuries just kept me away from doing it and playing good golf.

Q. What's been the response on Tour since your book has come out with the other players? Do they kind of view it as "that's John"? Did they kind of pretty much know all of that before it was put in print?

JOHN DALY: Well, it's amazing because I've had about 20 of the guys on Tour say, "I bought your book." I said, "What the hell are you buying it for? I'll give it to you." Most of them said they learned a lot about me, but they said they felt like they were having a conversation with me, like they were just talking to me. Most of them enjoyed it. A lot of them all said they really enjoyed it. They just didn't know some of the tough times I had in my past growing up and stuff, they didn't realize that. And some of the crazy things that I've done in my life, they didn't know that, either, but they said they learned a awful lot about me. But when they said they felt like they were talking to me, then I must have touched something to the reader.

Q. Your wife Sherrie, is she back now?

JOHN DALY: Yeah.

Q. Just one more question regarding the book. In the book you wrote that the more sex you have, the better golf you play.

JOHN DALY: That tells you another reason why I played bad this year (laughter).

Q. I was going to phrase the question this way: With your wife Sherrie now back, how well are you going to play this week (laughter)?

JOHN DALY: She hasn't been able to travel at all this year and I didn't see her but two times while she was incarcerated, so that explains it. She hates to see I played bad golf, but she knew definitely I wasn't cheating on her (laughter).

Q. Given that you're kind of the unofficial host, how happy are you that you're actually healthy this week, and what would it mean for you to play well?

JOHN DALY: It would mean everything. I mean, I know I'll be up here an awful lot more throughout a lot of years. We've got a great family relationship, I do, with 84 Lumber, and of course Joe and Maggie, but not having the tournament here anymore is sad. It would be great to play well, and it would be great for Vijay to play very well, which I know he probably well because he's with us, too, and it would be great to see it would be wonderful if it was me and Vijay walking up 18 on Sunday. That would make Dad and Maggie's whole week.

End of FastScripts.