John Daly

When someone fails to qualify for a competition it's incredibly fair to assume they won't win, however in 1991 we found out otherwise as larger than life golfer John Daly managed to do the impossible.

Going into the 1991 PGA Championship at Crooked Stick Golf Club in Carmel, Indiana Daly was expected to be watching from home. He hadn't just failed to qualify but he was well down the list of reserves, in fact he was the 9th alternate (the last alternate).

Surprisingly Daly got his chance after South African born Zimbabwean Nick Price pulled out close to the start of the competition with his wife about to give birth. Daly was the only one of the alternates able to actually make his way to the competition and therefore he was able to compete after all.

Going into the Championship Daly was truly an amateur. He had only been a professional since 1987 and had only won a handful of competitions with the 1990 Ben Hogan Utah Classic standing out as the only national competition that he'd won. Despite this Daly went to Crooked Stick, with out a practice round and shook up the golfing world with his "grip it and rip it" style that was based on striking power, especially from the tee.

In the first Round Daly played an excellent 69, 3 shots under the 72 shot par. This left him tied 8th 2 shots behind the leaders Kenny Knox and Ian Woosnam. Daly was remarkably more 4 than shots below the field average (73.75) and one of only 38 players under par from over 150 players in total.

The following round Daly played even more amazingly than he had on the opening day, scoring a 67 (5 under par) score. This was the tied best for the round along with  Fred Couples and Hal Sutton. At 136 shots from his first 2 rounds Daly had comfortably made the cut and was surprisingly in the lead a single shot ahead of Bruce Lietzke.

Having taken the lead Daly refused to give it up and carded an excellent 69 in round 3 stay ahead of the field and actually move further ahead of Bruce Lietzke (who carded a par round of 72) who fell 4 shots behind and Kenny Knox (who scored 70) who was now 3 shots behind. He followed that up on the final day with a card of 71 to record a mind blowing 276, 12 under par score for the championship. The 276 score saw Daly winning the tournament by 3 shots over Lietzke who came second with Jim Gallagher a further 2 shots behind.

Not only had Daly come out of nowhere to win but he was also the first rookie to win a Tour event in over a decade (since Jerry Pate won the U.S. Open in 1976). The victory helped earn Daly a cult fan base as well as the 1991 PGA Tour Rookie of the Year. Sadly however Daly has struggled to ever recreate his moment in the sunshine with his career blighted by alcohol and gambling problems, despite those issues however he did manage to win the 1995 Open Championship at The Old Course at Saint Andrews, his only other major win.

Photograph via Creative Commons by mandj98