Just for Kicks, Colts Invite Daly to Suit Up for a Game

By now, practically everyone knows how far John Daly, winner of the PGA Championship Sunday, can hit the ball. But how far can he kick it?

If Daly doesn’t make the cut this week at the International golf tournament in Castle Rock, Colo., the 25-year-old sensation could be kicking for the Indianapolis Colts Saturday night in an exhibition game against the New Orleans Saints.

“I’m dead serious,� Colt Coach Ron Meyer said Monday at the team’s training camp. “I spent about an hour with John last night and if he doesn’t make the cut at the International, I’m bringing him in and he’s going to be our backup kicker and kick an extra point for us.

“I’m sincere about that. I just have to clear it with Jim (Irsay, the club’s general manager). I mean, what the hell? We’ve got to spark up this thing somehow.�

Indianapolis is 0-2 in exhibitions, having lost to the Denver Broncos and Seattle Seahawks.

Daly, who was a kicker for two years in high school, told Meyer it has always been his dream to play in the NFL.

“(Daly) told me last night that if he could get on an NFL field, that would rank right up there with winning the PGA,� Meyer said. “I’ve talked with his agent and he said he’d be here if he doesn’t make the cut.�

When Daly was at Helias High in Jefferson City, Mo., he broke two kicking records in 1983, his senior year. Daly holds the school record for most consecutive extra points, 24, and most field goals, five, in a season.

Add PGA: Preliminary ratings for the top 25 television markets in the country show a 6.0 for Sunday’s final round of the PGA Championship on CBS. That’s a 20% increase from last year’s final round, which produced a 5.0 rating for Wayne Grady’s victory, televised by ABC.

“Increases of any amount are significant in this television age,� said Susan Kerr of CBS. “The Pan American Games were down 38%, so, comparatively speaking, it is important.�

One rating point is equal to 931,000 homes.

Add Daly: Daly, 25, is a regular at the Chickasaw Country Club in Memphis. So it’s not surprising that many weekend golfers at the Tennessee club stayed in the pro shop rather than on the course, preferring to watch one of their own on television.

Chickasaw members who did play carried small, battery-run TVs to keep up with the action in Carmel, Ind.

“Every time he made a birdie you could hear us yelling all over the course,� club member Rob Preston said.

Last add Daly: He leads the PGA Tour in driving distance with an average of 286.3 yards. His strength off the tee is a common topic around the Chickasaw dressing room.

Early on, Daly showed that power on the club’s par-four 14th hole, where a water hazard sits a few yards in front of the green. Most players go short of the water and aim for the green on a second shot, Preston said.

But on his first time out, Daily took the direct route, hitting the green from the tee.

“From that time on, everybody said he’s got a special ability we’d never seen before,� Preston said.

Trivia Time: The PGA Championship, the Masters, the U.S Open and the British Open make up the Grand Slam of golf. How many men have won them all in one year?

The Sunshine Boys: They call it the Sunshine Tour, a series of pro-am golf tournaments in northern Australia held during the summer, featuring a barnstorming group of young pros driving in buses or car caravans from town to town.

Australian golfers have another name for it, “The What a Waste of Time and Money Tour.� The entry fee is $5, for which golfers get 18 holes under a broiling sun--and all the beer they can drink.

Yet many successful Australian golfers were once on the Sunshine Tour. Greg Norman played the Sunshine. So did British Open champion Ian Baker-Finch, 1990 PGA champion Grady and several Aussie stars currently on the European tour.

“I played on the Sunshine when I was 18 to 22,� Baker-Finch recalled. “I traveled in a bus with a bunch of drunks. . . . Now all those drunks are in the top 50 in the world.�

Trivia Answer: No one has done it. Ben Hogan came the closest, being the only man to have won three of the four with victories in the Masters, U.S. Open and British Open in 1953. Hogan didn’t play in the PGA that year because it was the week after the British Open.

Quotebook: Asked after the PGA Championship, his first pro victory, what he thought of his chances of making the U.S. Ryder Cup team, Daly replied, “I don’t think I’m qualified.�