Tiger Woods might be the current holder of golf’s ‘meltdown king’ title, but back in the day John Daly was unrivalled.

He shot to international fame when he somehow won the 1991 PGA Championship, one of golf’s four majors, and then miraculously won the 1995 British Open in a playoff.

Those victories, and his renegade approach to a sport usually championed by some pretty boring chaps, made him a cult hero – as did his questionable choice of attire on the course, love of the nicotine, and battles with the bottle.

We shall overlook the mullet for now and focus on his pants – these pics via CNN:

All that noise aside, his major victories remain some of golf’s most remarkable achievements.

A look at him in action at the 1991 PGA Championship:

And the 1995 Open win:

Lofty heights indeed, but to say he had his demons would be an understatement. At least he’s honest:

How about losing a cool $55 million in gambling? Tick:

I’m not too sure what to make of this one:

And when your golf club decides to take a swim:

Jislaaik but he’s craving that entjie – check the last few seconds:

It’s sad that he has largely wasted his talent and his money, but no one can ever take those majors away from him.

Golf.com with a great piece on just how unbelievable that 1991 win was:

John Daly’s career has featured a litany of surprises, but none more audacious than the first: his win at the 1991 PGA Championship. Forget that Daly, a rookie, had missed 11 cuts in 23 starts preceding that week at Crooked Stick Golf Club in Carmel, Ind. The real shocker was his getting into the tournament at all, the result of a domino chain of withdrawals that ranged from excusable to extraordinary and that introduced Ken Anderson, the PGA’s czar of the alternates list, to a new kid on the Tour block: 9th alternate John Daly.

“I had never heard of him,” Anderson recalls today. “I had to go look him up in a PGA Tour player guide so I’d know what he looked like in case I had to go find him and get him registered.” What transpired, of course, was one of the most fateful clashes of time and circumstance in golf history.

If you’re fond of a great underdog story you’re going to want to read that full piece HERE.

Good luck out there, John, we’ll have a tipple for you down this neck of the woods.

[sources:cnn&golf]