PGA

• Focus suddenly shifts to Mickelson, Daly

  
  

  By Gerard Gallagher, Golf Editor (Sports Network) - We forget how good a golfer John Daly used to be. While obsessing over his on-course power, his off-the-course personal problems and his popularity as golf's no-bull everyman, we forget the fact that Daly was a two-time major champion nine years before Phil Mickelson won his first.

  Talk about your overlooked trivia.

  Celebrated by golf fans for different reasons, Daly and Mickelson are connected in another way besides their undeniable popularity. Both players came to prominence in the years before Tiger Woods burst onto the scene and changed the game forever, pushing tournament purses higher than they had ever been and golf courses longer than we had ever seen.

  Woods is the No. 1 story everywhere he goes, of course, never playing second fiddle to anyone. That role is for players like Daly and Mickelson, who have filled their niches admirably for a long time.

  We used to say that the dream scenario for the PGA Tour on any given Sunday was a playoff between Woods and Mickelson. Dream scenario No. 2 was a playoff between Woods and Daly -- although it's been years since that was even a possibility.

  Even when he's not playing, Woods commands the majority of our attention. Over the past two months, that has meant a lot of talk about infidelity and sex addiction clinics, racy text messages and sleep medication.

  And it's all become a little too much.

  Which is why it came as something of a relief last weekend when we were no longer focusing on Woods, but instead talking about golf's most famous second fiddles.

  'I'M DONE' On Friday, Daly walked off the course at Torrey Pines after missing the cut by eight shots and told a Golf Channel crew: "I'm done." The words sparked speculation that he was retiring from golf, especially since he also said in the interview that he "can't keep taking spots from guys out here playing this bad." Daly, who is being filmed by Golf Channel for a reality show, has no status on the PGA Tour and has been playing on exemptions. He has made only six cuts over the past two-plus seasons.

  In an example of how media attention and pressure from sponsors can soften an athlete's position, Daly backpedaled from the retirement talk. He said on his Twitter feed Saturday: "I'm not retired & never said that I was retiring." Daly said we only saw "1/2 the clip" of the Golf Channel interview and claimed one of his sponsors urged him to keep playing.

  It was all a little confusing, especially since Daly had seemed to be explaining his decision to retire in a series of tweets that appeared earlier Saturday morning.

  The explanation took up three posts. Put in order, they said: "To ALL my Fans---my financial situation is putting me where I cannot focus on my game, I'm putting too much pressure on myself. The few sponsors that I have are great but it's not getting me thru these times--i want to thank my fans throughout all these years & I don't like to continue to embarrass myself-- maybe my mind may change down the road but right now i don't have the money to be on the tour. My game has never been the same since my rib injury during the Honda Classic in 2007. God Bless! JD." It certainly appeared to be some version of a modern-day retirement speech -- rapid-fire comments posted to a social networking Web site by an athlete whose account has more than 42,000 followers.

  Daly, who will turn 44 this year, has lost a substantial amount of weight over the past year while supplementing his few PGA Tour starts with appearances on golf circuits overseas. At one point several months ago, he said he weighed 180 pounds, which would make him lighter than me.

  Even if getting into shape hasn't helped him play better, it has been interesting to watch his transformation from "Big John" to medium-sized John, and it should be fascinating to see how he comes off during his reality show.

  If nothing else, Daly should stick it out as long as he can. It would be a hell of a comeback story if he can find a way to turn his game around and remind us once again how good a player he once was.

  'IT'S CHEATING' Also on Friday, the San Francisco Chronicle published a story in which PGA Tour veteran Scott McCarron accused Mickelson of cheating for exploiting a loophole in the new regulations against using wedges with square grooves.

  Mickelson had a Ping Eye 2 wedge in his bag at Torrey Pines -- a club with square grooves that, because of a decades-old lawsuit, is exempted from the new regulations.

  McCarron and most other players have switched to wedges with V-shaped grooves, conforming to the new USGA rule implemented this year that aims to make it harder for players to control the ball out of the rough.

  Mickelson is one of several players -- Daly among them -- who have circumvented the regulation by using the Ping clubs.

  "It's cheating," McCarron told the paper, "and I'm appalled Phil has put it in play." McCarron also told the paper that the players using the grandfathered Ping clubs "should be ashamed of themselves for doing that. ... As one of our premier players, [Mickelson] should be one of the guys who steps up and says this is wrong." While McCarron stood by statement after it became public, Mickelson criticized the rule and said of his fellow player: "I don't agree with the way he's carried on about it, but that's his choice." Mickelson also hinted at a possible lawsuit when he said Saturday: "We all have our opinions on the matter, but a line was crossed and I just was publicly slandered. And because of that, I'll have to let other people handle that." Yikes.

  So was Mickelson cheating? Well, no, not technically. There is no rule on the books that says players can't use the Ping clubs, so why should any player who can find one of them follow a regulation that doesn't exist? Checking eBay on Sunday night, we found a lot of the Ping clubs for sale -- some of them with bids that exceeded $100. One of the sellers listed a Ping Eye 2 sand wedge as "Grandfathered In." Reigning British Open champion Stewart Cink posted a picture of a Ping Eye 2 lob-wedge on his Twitter feed Sunday afternoon and wrote: "Packing up for my trip to Northern Trust Open tomorrow. Should I give my 'new' lob wedge a try?" It was unclear whether Cink was serious or not -- although we suspect it was a joke. It is also unclear whether the exempted Ping clubs, made 20 years ago, even provide an advantage over modern-day wedges with V-shaped grooves.

  Still, if Mickelson isn't guilty of cheating, he is at least guilty of violating "the spirit of the rule," as another tour veteran, Rocco Mediate, told the Chronicle.

  And in the game of golf, long known for its gentlemanly ways, that type of behavior can be seen as a form of cheating.

  Said Mediate: "We have to get rid of those clubs, because they're square grooves -- what else can you say?" At least we weren't talking about Woods for a few days.

  02/01 12:02:37 ET