No Skins for John Daly

Filed in archive Golf News on March 29, 2008

Courtesy: Telus Skins Game

The lineup for the Telus World Skins Game was announced yesterday. It's one of John Daly's favorite events.

This is another of the made-for-TV events in today's game but it has proven very popular with Canadian golf fans over the years.

Telus is one of the country's leading mobile phone companies and they hooked up with the Canadian Skins Game a few years back.

Last year, a very successful Skins Game was played and televised in Ontario that featured Daly, Stephen Ames, Retief Goosen, Geoff Ogilvy and Colin Montgomerie.

The crowd loved Daly, of course, who was at his showman best.



They also loved Monty - the nice and relaxed Monty who came out.

This year, the lineup sees Montgomerie return for the 2008 Telus Skins Game at Predator Ridge in British Columbia. Fred Couples - who played in a very early Skins Game at Devil's Pulpit in Ontario many years ago - and Greg Norman, past Canadian Open winner, are new to the Telus version this summer.

The organizers very cleverly added Camilo Villegas to the mix thus ensuring plenty of young women will flock out to watch.

That's four. Being Canadian, the event will fill the fifth spot with a Canadian player. Mike Weir, Stephen Ames or perhaps rising star Jon Mills.

But no John Daly. He's been dropped and it's no accident, I suspect.

Daly has always loved playing skins in Canada - the event has put a lot of money in his pants. Last year alone, he walked away with 200 grand. Of course, he likes gambling.

However, his recent off-course behavior at PGA Tour events has left a bitter taste in some corporate mouths.

Daly is the Anna Kournikova of golf; you don't have to win anything to clean up in endorsements and appearance money. Kournikova never won a single WTA tournament yet she routinely banked 11 million a year in endorsement contracts.

Last year, Daly pulled in 8 million or so and played on sponsor exemptions.

Now it looks like the taps might be slowly turning off for big John.