When it comes to golf history, TPC Harding Park doesn’t have much of it. But what this week’s PGA Championship venue lacks in quantity, it makes up for in quality. Allow us to explain.
Most recently, Harding Park was the site of the 2015 WGC-Match Play, which Rory McIlroy won over Gary Woodland. That was cool and all, but the craziest thing that happened that week occurred on Friday afternoon, when Keegan Bradley and Miguel Angel Jimenez met in a meaningless Group Stage match. Late in their match, Bradley was looking to get a free drop from a temporary immovable obstruction, which MAJ disputed. The rest, as they say, is history:
Six years earlier, Harding Park was also the site of what is arguably one of Tiger Woods’ greatest reactions to a golf shot in his career (sixth-best, according to Alex Myers, who knows nothing). The twirl heard ‘round the world:
Still incredible, no matter how many times you watch it. Not to steal Myers’ line, but there really should be a statue of that pose in the 18th fairway at Harding Park (maybe he does know what he’s talking about).
Four years earlier, Harding Park hosted its first PGA Tour event since 1969, the WGC-American Express Championship, and it was an absolute gem. Tiger Woods and John Daly ended up in a sudden-death playoff, which Daly lost in shocking fashion, missing a three-footer/three-putting from 15 feet:
As wild as those three Harding Park happenings were, they all pale in comparison to what happened off the San Francisco property back in 2005. Daly, after missing that short putt to lose to Woods on the third sudden-death playoff hole, went straight to Las Vegas. In his 2006 autobiography, Daly wrote that when he arrived, he sat down at a $5,000-per play slot machine. Within the first half hour, he lost $600,000. Luckily, his second-place finish at the American Express earned him $750,000, so he was still up $150,000 on the day.
But Daly refused to walk away, taking out a $600,000 line of credit at the casino and losing that within two hours. He eventually lost $1.65 million (!!!) in total in five hours, playing mostly slots.
"If I don't get control of my gambling, it's going to flat-out ruin me," he says in the book, co-written with Glen Waggoner.
“And here’s how my sick mind analyzed the situation: My sponsorship payments would be coming through in January, so I’d be able to pay everything off and get back to even by the beginning of the new year. Everything’s fine. Everything’s OK. No problema. Hell, yes, there’s a problema.”
Uhh, ya think?
Of course, $1.65 million is just a fraction of what Daly lost in his gambling lifetime. In a 2016 interview with Graham Bensginer, Daly estimated that he’s lost between $50 and $60 million gambling in his life.
In the time since, Daly has supposedly dialed it back, and in that same 2016 interview with Bensinger said he plays the $25 slot machines now. Sadly, he won’t be able to make some better memories at Harding Park this week. Daly withdrew on Sunday due to COVID-19 concerns. But he and his cart will be there in spirit.
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