The Loop
What IF John Daly was a Ryder Cup captain? Five positives JD would bring to the event
Thanks to the inundation of a never-ending news cycle and our decreasing attention spans, most tidbits are ephemeral, forgotten before they're fully digested. For a report to have any type of permanence, it has to be particularly exceptional.
This is one of those items.
In his weekly Missing Links piece, Golf Digest's John Strege referenced John Daly's personal campaign for Ryder Cup captaincy. Speaking in Aberdeen, Scotland at an event hosted by British Open champion Paul Lawrie, Daly said:
"Hopefully I would one day be a captain, it would be fun. I don't know if I fit the mold. I don't know if I fit what the PGA of America would want.
"All I know is my team, if I was a captain, we'd have a blast. I'd make sure they had a blast. You don't want to wear a tie, don't wear a tie. Have fun. It's supposed to be fun.
"I think we just get wrapped up in it. I think when you're favored to win so many years like the Americans have been, I think we get uptight. Even the matches that we are getting killed in, we are favored in.
"I think we put too much pressure on ourselves. Just go out and play golf. It's great to play for your country, but it's still a gentleman's game at the end. I don't know all the facts and everything that goes on behind the doors when the captain is talking and everything, but I sense it (and) it's my opinion that the European guys get along better. When I see it on TV, it just looks like our guys are not having a good time."
(Wiping tears from eyes, giving Daly a standing ovation.)
JD is a lot of things, but no one has ever accused him of blowing smoke. (Unless we're talking literal cigarette smoke.) The man drops truth bombs, and in this case, it's a necessary blitzkrieg.
The Ryder Cup's self-perpetuating importance and gravitas, at least from the American side, has become a monster, and it's one that needs to be cut down. Who better to do it than Daly, a man who has a history of disrupting the status quo of the sport?
Here's why "John Daly, Ryder Cup Captain" is not an absurd proposition:
He's Right: It's Supposed To Be Fun
Instead of a friendly international exhibition, the Ryder Cup has become an increasingly jingoistic circus. Worse, much of this feeling is unnatural and forced. This isn't Jesse Owens at the Berlin Olympics; half the European roster are beloved regulars on the PGA Tour.
Forget winning or losing consequences; having Daly in the mix will return a sense of camaraderie to the event.
The Outfits. Oh, The Outfits.
For the unaware, one of the responsibilities of Ryder Cup captaincy is input on the team's ensembles. Meaning the Americans could march out in this:
Or this: