The former Open champion reveals in his autobiography, John Daly: My Life In and Out of the Rough, to be released on May 8, that he has lost more than $50 million in the last 12 years through heavy gambling.
“If I don\’t get control of my gambling, it\’s going to flat-out ruin me,” states Daly, who has been married three times and battled alcohol addiction as well.
Daly revealed that he has spent the last 12 years paying off gambling debts with his sponsorship income. In particular he owed $4 million to casinos until he won the 1995 British Open at St. Andrews, his second major. That victory and the ability to get handsome appearance fees, enabled him to pay off the debt.
He recounted one episode last October, when hours after winning nearly $750,000 at the World Golf Championship-American Express, he drove to Las Vegas and lost $1.65 million, half of that in just 30 minutes playing $5,000 slot machines.
Daly recalled former Dallas Cowboys linebacker Thomas “Hollywood” Henderson telling him at a Tucson rehab center in 1993 that Daly would find something he loves as much as drinking, and that he would have to be careful.
“The people around me were hoping, of course, that the \’something\’ would be practicing golf. No such luck,” Daly wrote. “What I found was gambling.”
Daly has been one of the most popular figures on the PGA Tour since he won the 1991 PGA Championship as the ninth alternate. He has five PGA Tour victories and career earnings of $8.7 million.
Elsewhere, an administrator with Commonwealth Bank subsidiary Colonial Mutual Life allegedly stole $10.5 million from clients\’ accounts between December 2004 and March 2006, and gambled $8.5 million of it away at Star City casino. The man, who started out by stealing $4,144 before eventually taking as much as $625,000 into his account at one time, is expected to face 37 charges of obtaining money by deception when he faces Sydney\’s Central Local Court later this week.
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