Every morning, the fine folks at Sports Radio Interviews sift through the a.m. drive-time chatter to bring you the best interviews with coaches, players, and personalities across the sports landscape. Today: a man with four ex-wives dispenses advice on happy golf marriages.
Daly joined 790 The Zone in Atlanta to talk about about Tiger Woods, his talk with him at The PGA last year about what happened two Thanksgivings ago, how he told Tiger that the whole mess he's had to deal with never would have materialized had he just been candid right away about what was going on in his life, his philosophy on the expectations of sex within marriages, and his reflections about winning majors early in his career, how he then wasted talent with delusions of grandeur in the later years of the '90s, and how it's just a matter of finding some confidence and catching a break now that he's recommitted himself to his game and making better decisions off the golf course.
On how things might have been different for him if he had made better choices:
"Yeah, by some of the answers I might have given and by some of the stupid stuff I did. I mean, I set myself up a lot back in the day to get ridiculed. And I deserved it, because I did some stupid things - whether I quit on the course, walked off, or threw a club, or did something stupid off the golf course - destroy a hotel room or whatever, I mean I've done it all. Luckily everything I've done was legal; I've never done drugs thank God. But you don't think about things when you're on top of the world, you don't think about those type of things. And when I look back I wish I did, because whether it's one fan, millions of fans, thousands, your peers, the peers that you're playing with, your teammates, whatever - when you do something bad, it's going to hurt not only you but someone else. And that takes a lot away from you as an individual. I mean, you can look at what Tiger's going through. It's embarrassing. Is he embarrassed? Hell yeah he's embarrassed. Any time we do something bad we're embarrassed, but the way I've felt good about myself is I've always been honest. Whether I've done good or bad, I've always told the truth. And it gives the media a one-day story instead of a prolonged eight, nine months story that Tiger's was."
Has he had the chance to say that to Tiger, and would he if he hasn't had the chance to?
"I did last year at The PGA. And what we talked about I couldn't even fathom kind of telling you guys because it's a personal conversation, but it made me relieved of what Tiger was going through. Do I blame Tiger for what he did, and does he? Yes. But does he have a reason? Yes. And that reason is something I don't want to talk about. But I told him, ‘if you would have come out that night after the incident and told the world what was going on - not listened to your agents, not listened to anybody else, just what your heart said and thought what you just told me - this story would have ended in one day.' And he said ‘I know, I know. I just had to listen to everybody.' I said ‘that's the thing you've got to understand Tiger, you're the greatest player that's ever played, you don't have to listen to anybody, you have to listen to what your heart tells you to do.' And he says ‘I thought about talking to the media right after it all happened, I really did, and told them the truth and told them what was going on. But I was told not to.' So, I don't blame him in that aspect of listening to the bad advice, which I totally think he got throughout the whole situation."
Wait, is he talking about that first Thanksgiving night, or after when all the sordid details emerged:
"Afterwards, afterwards. I think everything afterwards that everybody found out about."
So, there was some way to get people to at least partially understand what was going on had he come out and spoken candidly?
"Exactly. I mean, you're looking at a guy who all the way through his college days, all there was was golf, golf, golf, golf golf. And then there was more golf. And then there was more golf. The guy never had a chance to live a life, and you know, certain things that people go through they find out they like and don't like. And as a young man or whatever, there's certain things you like and certain things you don't like. He found out late what he really liked because he was never around it. He didn't have a chance to find out what women were like and what girls were like that much until he was in his late teens, late late, almost 20. I don't think folks realize that."
But doesn't everybody lose the right to have sex with others after making the decision to get married?
"Well you should if your wife's good and makes love to you when you want to be made love to, and does things with you and wants to do things with you, and wants to support you, and wants to be with you in your career, wants to take the selfish side of the player. I mean, in this sport, in major sports no matter what, even a guy that runs a multi-billion dollar corporation - a woman has to understand that it's a lot on a person's shoulders to deal with. You can either be a part of it, supportive and keep going, and not go your materialistic ways that I've been through. My exes, if you look at my life, they just quit supporting me. Plus, they didn't want to have sex anymore. And when that happens - and I've always been straight up front with every one of them - I said ‘if you're not going to give it to me, I am going to go get it somewhere else.' And that's just the way I've been whether there's a ring on my finger or not. Is that adultery? Maybe so, but from what I understand, when you're married they're supposed to give it to you."
So Woods should have gone up to a podium and said ‘I'm not getting it anymore, I've had enough':
"Exactly. That's what I did."
And that would have kept the story from blowing up into the media circus that it became?
"I think so. You wouldn't have had 127 or 128 women come out and say they had sex with Tiger. I mean, if people really believe that Tiger had sex with 127, then we're not really as smart or common sense as we think we are. I mean, come on."
If he felt like he threw away some of his natural and talent:
"I think in the '90s, I really wasted my talent. Because I had won two majors already, and you sit there thinking about getting to 18 majors and tying Nicklaus. And I think just winning those two was so tough, I'm going ‘I don't think I can get to Nicklaus' record. And then when you see Tiger coming out, and by then I think he had won….right around 2002 I think he had won like 8, 10, somewhere in there. It made me realize that I'm in a sport where, hey, if I get my crap together and start working on my game and doing better, there's a chance I can win some more golf tournaments. So I'm definitely committed again. I've been sober almost two and a half years now, lost 130 pounds. So I'm on the right track. Now it's just a matter of finding the confidence after the bad injuries in '07 from a flash camera that tore my shoulder and my ribs up. I've just got to find the confidence, I'm doing everything else right."
If he could play one course with four people, where would it be and with who:
"It'd be like Angelina Jolie, Drew Barrymore, I still love Meg Ryan…It'd be all girls. It'd be wherever they want to play."
This post, written by Michael Bean, appears courtesy of Sports Radio Interviews. For the complete highlights of the interview, as well as audio, click here.
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