My Life in and Out of the Rough

Not being a sports fanatic, I had no idea who John Daly was. But I was prepared to hate him: a millionaire pro golfer who does everything to excess, as his waistline and alimony checks bear witness. Instead, his warts-and-all autobiography, MY LIFE IN AND OUT OF THE ROUGH, made me want to sit down with him and buy him a beer. But he'd probably drink me into the poorhouse. Pegged as "the truth behind all that bullshit you think you know about me," the tell-all recounts his out-of-nowhere 1991 PGA championship before jumping back to the beginning, where we learn about his youthful party days. You know, the good times, like when his dad almost killed him with a pistol. In college, his diet consisted of cigarettes, popcorn and whiskey, leading to more dangerous days with alcohol, like the night he ran 17 red lights in a row just because he felt like it, or when he destroyed his own house in a rage. Daly's on-again/off-again battle with alcohol isn't the only addiction he chronicles. There's also gambling (he's lost $55 million in 15 years at casinos), cigarettes (he smokes during tourneys), sex (he's currently on his fourth wife, who's in prison), chocolate (a 20-pack-a-day habit of Peanut M&Ms) and diet Coke (15 cans every 24 hours). No one will accuse ROUGH of being literary; in fact, the Q&A comprising Chapter 10 reads like grade school journalism, but the book's true tall tales build an immense speed, as if you're just sitting on the barstool next to the guy, hearing him tell his life story. Ironically, by taking every effort to make himself look bad, the Hooters-sponsored, Jack Nicklaus-worshipping Daly comes off looking good. Honesty goes a long way in the endearment department. –Rod Lott "If you think about sex as much as I do, it can get tough out there in a golf tournament. You got good-looking women all over the place. Some of them take off their underpants and sit around the greens and flash you when you come up to putt. Women are always coming up to you in the parking lot and asking you to sign their boobs. I used to do that a lot, but after that thing with Tiffany on the Internet, I don't sign tits anymore." Buy it at Amazon. Discuss it in our forums.