‘Going to hurt’: John Daly worried by ‘hardcore’ form of off-course activity

Doing “some things,” John Daly says, is OK. But only some. 

When golf workouts extend past that, he gets anxious. 

“I think the hardcore working out is going to hurt these guys,” the two-time major winner said, “and they won’t be playing when they’re 55, 60 years old.”  

Daly was talking on the most recent episode of the “Like a Farmer” podcast — which you can listen to in full here — and his thought came after discussing Tiger Woods, who’s typically credited with popularizing strength and fitness training in modern-day golf. Daly said he believed overdoing it can hinder someone, though, and that you don’t have to work out that hard to play golf.

And yes, he knows what you’re thinking — and he said he’s not using the thought as an excuse for not working out himself. 

“I think working out,” Daly said on the podcast, “I think a lot of guys lose their flexibility and so many guys are mechanical, too, they don’t have a lot. That means their body’s not equipped to taking the club back as far as I can or not fortunate to be as flexible as I can, but they work strenous on the game and getting their their swing into exactly the way they want it, but I think working out hurts a lot of these guys, I really do.”

Is there truth to what Daly says? Some. Simply put, overdoing gym work could hurt; any fitness instructor will tell you that. And what works for one person won’t necessarily work for another. But correct off-course training, under proper guidance, has shown to offer such rewards as distance, flexibility and stamina, along with being safe. There’s more to it than, say, bench-pressing. 

Some, of course, can survive without much training. On the podcast, host Pat Spinosa asked Daly what his workout routine looked like.

Short game, he said. 

“Mine was just practice wedges and chip and putt all day long,” Daly said on the podcast. “I could do that all day long; that’s all I did. You know, people say I don’t practice a lot, but they don’t know. When I get to a tournament, if you’re not ready, you shouldn’t have to practice as much — you should just kind of go just get warmed up basically, and a lot of times, I won’t even hit a ball; I’ll just go to the putting green, hit a few chips and go. But that’s my mentality. 

“And you got to understand, playing with these guys when I came out on tour, it was like, hey, you know, let’s go out and eat and have a few drinks, we play golf, practice a little bit and we can start drinking. That’s the way golf was played when I came up and until the ’96, 7, 8, whenever Tiger came out and the workout stuff started. Well, yeah, it’s too late for me. What am I going to do, bulk up and look like, what, Mr Olympia? Hell no, I don’t want to do that.” 

But there is something he would do, he said on the podcast. 

Back to that short game thought. 

“Yeah, they hit it a mile and stuff,” Daly said on the podcast. “but what happened was, that I’ve seen, is these kids would rather go to the driving range and see if they can hit it 350, but that’s great, but can you chip and putt? When I retire from this game — hopefully I live long enough — man, I’d love to help these kids with short game. Because I feel like I’m — I got the feel for it and I can work on mechanics with it, too. And that would be something that I could really, really give back to the game. 

“Tougher on amateurs because especially — unless they’re beginners, but if an amateur is set in its own ways, you can teach them a few things, but more or less for me, I’d like to teach professionals, help professionals.”

Editor’s note: To listen to the whole Like a Farmer podcast with John Daly, please click here.