ORLANDO – Tiger and Charlie Woods aren’t the only ones hobbled this week at the PNC Championship.
Former two-time major champion John Daly revealed that he is scheduled to have left knee replacement surgery Wednesday. Daly, 56, who has dealt with osteoarthritis, previously had his right knee replaced three years ago.
“It’s tough when you don’t have a follow-through,” Daly told pgatour.com. “I’m basically just trying to stay on one leg. But the adrenaline of playing with my son will get me through.”
Team Daly, the defending champs, just teed off. They’re four shots back.
John Daly Sr.’s final round warmup routine:
0 range balls hit
0 chips hit
0 putts hit“Ready to go, baby.” pic.twitter.com/Ub46nGuwrR
— LKD (@LukeKerrDineen) December 18, 2022
“So I’ll be out for a while,” he added in a pre-tournament interview. “We’ve got Christmas coming up, so we’ll get to spend some time together.”
Daly held off on surgery so that he and John II, who is redshirting this year at Arkansas, could attempt to defend their title at the PNC Championship. The Dalys edged out Team Woods by a stroke last year.
Daly can relate to the pain that Tiger, who lately has been dealing with plantar fasciitis, is enduring to play.
“It’s no fun when you can’t walk and can’t turn and be able to get out and practice enough and complete, which I can’t do right now really,” Daly said. “I pray for Tiger. I hope his leg holds up and gets fixed because we need him on the Tour. For me, I’ve had probably more surgeries probably than Tiger. They just keep adding up over the last five years. But I get this metal put in this knee, hell, I got more metal than the Bionic Man does.”
Team Woods 🤝 Team Daly
Dressed to the nines @PNCchampionship. pic.twitter.com/gGeaQ8y823
— PGA TOUR Champions (@ChampionsTour) December 17, 2022
While Tiger has been adamant that he won’t petition for use of a cart on the PGA Tour, Daly, who has used a cart in the PGA Championship since 2019, doesn’t think riding in a cart provides an edge. He argued, in fact, that it is a disadvantage.
“I’m not embarrassed to take a cart. It’s not helping my golf game by any means,” Daly said. “I would rather walk and play golf because then you have time to settle down on a good hole or a bad hole and you’re walking instead of just getting in the cart and going up and hitting the shot. It’s actually a big disadvantage. But if I could walk, I’d definitely do it.”
