John Daly once famously said, “You can pull a muscle, but you can’t pull fat,” and he still stands by that to this day.
The pro golfer is a legendary sports figure, and whether you like it or not, Daly is a glistening representation of the peak male form. He presented himself to the world as a professional athlete in the late 1980s by speaking his mind and wearing bright colored and patterned outfits.
Daly has only grown his reputation ever further by drinking beer, smoking cigs, and parking his RV outside of Hooter’s restaurants to sign autographs (he’s surely going through it right now with the latest news about Hooter’s). If you haven’t figured it out already, Daly pretty much does anything and everything he wants to, whenever he wants to. That’s why his pre-round routine can sometimes only last one swing, and almost always involves an inordinate amount of Diet Coke
And it might sound strange considering his diet and exercise regimen, but John Daly has longevity like no other. He was rarely ever hurt during his professional career, and he’s still hitting bombs when he does decide to tee it up and compete at the age of 58-years-old.
Daly credits his health – or at least always being able to play in tournaments – to the fact that he’s never worked out.
On a recent episode of the Like A Farmer Podcast, he even took a stand against PGA Tour players that excessively exercise. Daly was specifically talking about how Tiger Woods approaches everything “100% go,” including his workouts. He believes that kind of mindset towards physical activity will result in nothing but injury:
“You’re gonna get hurt. I believe when this whole work out thing started, doing some things is good. But I think the hardcore working out is going to hurt these guys, and they won’t be playing when they’re 55, 60 years old. I always say, ‘I don’t work out, I put out.’ That’s not an excuse for me not working out. I just don’t believe you have to work out that hard to play the game of golf.”
And Daly is not the first to think that Tiger getting jacked hurt his golf game. In fact, a lot of golf pros have suspected that Tiger’s injury woes are somewhat connected to him bulking up with a heavy weight lifting regimen.
The colorful golfer then joked that he does partake in curls as he picked up the alcoholic beverage he was drinking during the interview. Love that. Any interview that I ever see him do makes John Daly feel like the ultimate “play a round and grab a beer” guy. And Daly wasn’t done with his rant against working out, as he continued with his argument:
“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 strenuous 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.”
And there might be something to what John Daly is saying.
At the very least, his approach to the professional game has worked out for him. Daly is a five-time winner on the PGA Tour, and he’s still one of the most popular and recognizable names of the sport. As for Daly’s secret to preparing for golf tournaments (other than cigarettes and Diet Coke), he insisted that he just dedicated his “work out time” to more practice:
“Mine was just practice wedges and chip and putt all day long. 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 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.”
Just typical, legendary stuff right there.
John Daly continues to be a certified content machine, and I know President Trump is doing a lot to bring the game of golf back together (PGA and LIV), but I feel like Daly needs to be involved in some way. Surely I can’t be alone in thinking that, right?
You can hear more from the iconic golfer and Hooter’s fanatic in the interview below:
