John Daly is set to miss the PGA Championship as he continues his comeback from surgery earlier this year that has hampered his play in 2025
John Daly will not play in the PGA Championship(Image: Leslie Plaza Johnson/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
Cult hero John Daly has declared himself Lazarus and revealed ‘waking up is a win for me’ after opting out of playing the PGA Championship next week. The two-time golf major winner is still on the comeback from a 16th surgery after requiring an operation on his left hand earlier this year.
A series of health issues have taken their toll since a bladder cancer diagnosis in 2020, after which he vowed to stop smoking and improve his lifestyle. Though he is still often pictured with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth while enjoying a round of golf.
Daly became a cult figure for his dress sense and off-course activities as well as his great achievements on it. ‘Wild Thing’ won the US PGA in 1991 and the Open four years later via a play-off against Constantino Rocca at St Andrew’s.
The 59-year-old has suffered from alcohol issues over the course of his career however. He spent time in rehab on more than one occasion, checking into the Betty Ford Center for a period in 1997.
His return from surgery has not been easy in 2025 and he finished 27 over par last week at the Insperity Invitational, a tournament he won in 2017. Daly reckons his biggest issues remains playing through the ball on three-quarter shots and his putting after finishes of tied 56th, tied 75th, tied 50th and 77th this year.
“I’m like Lazarus — I keep coming back from the dead,” he said. “Waking up is a win for me.”
And while Daly is set to miss out on the PGA Championship, he will still be enjoying time on a course. The veteran will instead play the Regions Tradition in Birmingham, Alabama — the first of five majors on the PGA Tour Champions — after it clashed with the major at Quail Hollow Club in Charlotte, North Carolina.
“I can go there and miss the cut and get $6,000,” Daly said of the PGA Championship. “But I’m playing Birmingham. I love Regions. They’re a great sponsor. But why are they scheduling Regions the same week as the PGA Championship, where I can see Brooks (Koepka) and all the guys?”
Daly has a unique style in golf attire(Image: Rich Storry/Getty Images)
Fellow former PGA winner Rich Beem, who took down Tiger Woods in 2002, has also chosen not to play this year. Beem now works for Sky Sports and felt he didn’t have enough time to prepare this year.
It won’t be the first major Daly has missed, and it’s been two decades since he played at the Masters. The American still raked in $780,000 (close to £600,000) for an appearance at Augusta this year however. Once again, the former Open and US PGA champion isn’t out on the course, but restaurant chain Hooters is responsible for his hefty pay packet.
Around a mile from the course, Daly was in attendance at the local branch of Hooters for what has become an annual meet-and-greet. Speaking to ESPN, the veteran pro said his goal for the week was to “Eat some good food, smoke, sell some s***.”
His team estimated he made around $780,000 last year as he sells items such as cigars and signed golf balls. “The people come here and it’s like the first time to Disney with him,” Daly’s caddy Lance Odom said.
“Each person that comes up, they have a story. It’s like being with Michael Jordan. You can’t go to the gas station without people coming up.”