Andrew ‘Beef’ Johnston recalls epic drunken escapade with John Daly

Split image of pro golfers Andrew "Beef" Johnston and John Daly.

Andrew "Beef" Johnston (left) and John Daly (right) had an epic first encounter a few years back.

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The 2024 pro golf season saw the resurgence of fan favorite Andrew “Beef” Johnston, and we’re all better off for it. Look no further than a recent interview with the DP World Tour, where Beef shared an epic tale of trying to out-drink golf (and drinking) legend John Daly.

Johnston burst on the scene in 2016, when his first win at the Open de Espana set off a streak of hot play, leading to his first PGA Tour card in 2017. The Englishman quickly ingratiated himself with golf fans thanks to his easy humor and likable personality.

A combination of injuries and poor play dropped Beef from the public’s consciousness for a few years, but 2024 saw him re-enter the top 100 in the Race to Dubai rankings. He earned his best result in a long time at the Omega European Masters in July, where he finished in solo third.

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On Tuesday, the DP World Tour released a lengthy interview with Johnston on YouTube as part of their “Life on Tour” series with hosts George Harper Jr. and John E. Morgan.

And at the very end of the sit-down, Beef got to the good stuff. When asked if he had any good Daly stories to share, he offered up one for the ages.

The incident took place a few years back at the Turkish Airlines Open, where Beef encountered Daly for the first time. After Sunday’s final round, the two larger-than-life golfers met up for a beer, and it quickly turned into a serious drinking exhibition, as Johnston related in the interview.

“We got a chat in and I was having a beer, and he was like, ‘we’ll get a bucket of these beers.’ And he was obviously straight on whisky,” Johnston shared. “And he was like ‘look, go back to the hotel and come meet me and we’ll carry on.'”

It’s when the two pro golfers met back up later that the adventure started to go off the rails, thanks mostly to the full glasses of whiskey Daly was ordering for them.

“I remember sitting there… and he ordered like two large whiskeys. And he’s got the can of coke on the side. As the waiter put them down, [Daly] went, ‘can we order two more?'”

A shocked Johnston replied, “Mate, they’ve just come!”

Trying to keep up with Daly eventually got the best of Beef.

“Next thing, I’m in my pants, and I’m shaking a tree, and then I’m jumping in the pool, and I’m like, ‘he seems OK! I’m not, he seems OK!'” Beef explained.

“And I wake up and I was like ‘what happened?’ And my missus at the time was like, ‘yea you stripped down to your pants, and you were shaking this bush for some reason, and you kinda jumped in the pool.'”

When Beef asked about what happened to Daly, he was told, unsurprisingly, that he was fine and had just walked back to his hotel at the end of the night.

You can check out Johnston’s full interview with the DP World Tour below.

Kevin Cunningham

Kevin Cunningham

As managing producer for GOLF.com, Cunningham edits, writes and publishes stories on GOLF.com, and manages the brand’s e-newsletters, which reach more than 1.4 million subscribers each month. A former two-time intern, he also helps keep GOLF.com humming outside the news-breaking stories and service content provided by our reporters and writers, and works with the tech team in the development of new products and innovative ways to deliver an engaging site to our audience.