John Daly's Pants Are Why God Continues To Bless The U.S.A.

Today we salute the sartorial choice of one John Patrick Daly, age 47, professional golfer, recreational smoker, University of Arkansas dropout, lapband surgery patient, puller of muscles, designer of golf courses, breaker of cameras, personal friend to Hootie and assorted Blowfish, Vegas whale, tosser of putters, distance driver nonpareil, Kid Rock backup singer, Hooters patron, divorced father, scourge to the British, former PGA Tour Rookie of the Year, recovering drinker, loser of libel suits and all-around American hero. Pictured are the pants he wore today for the Greenbrier Classic in White Sulphur Springs, W.Va.

(At least, we assume those are pants. It would come as no true shock to learn those are by now Daly's bare legs.)

Those pants. They're as bold and reverent as they are tacky and overwrought. They passed and then repealed Prohibition. They gave us a Martin Luther King Jr. and then shot him, gave us a James Garfield and then shot him, welcomed a John Lennon and then shot him. They condone through law and custom the gun murders of 11,000 Americans a year, many of whom are killed en masse at schools by insane people, but they also provide the protection under which you are absolutely permitted to say the government is completely fucked on that count. They put people in prisons by the millions for non-violent drug offenses but also invented public libraries, national parks and weekends. They slaughtered the Indians and the Mexicans and the Filipinos and the Cubans and then cured polio, built the Internet, created jazz and birthed basketball. They liberated Dachau, bombed Cambodia, backed the Shah, rushed headlong into the mustard gas, abandoned Rwanda. They freed the slaves but of course, in order to do that, first enslaved millions and millions of people.

After all this time, we're still figuring out what the hell is up with those pants. But for a Fourth of July get-up? They are nothing shy of remarkable. Daly, meanwhile, shot 5-over on the day, and as of this writing sits in a tie for 152nd place.

Photo credit: AP