Who's Head is Looser? John Daly or His Putter?

I've never really understood the widespread popularity of John Daly. To me, he provides solid evidence to anyone who wants to argue that you don't need to be an athlete to play golf at the highest level. What other sport features players who can win while dragging on a Marlboro Red?

While few things about Daly appeal to me, we do have one thing in common - our misery with the putter. Daly 3-Jacked it whenever it mattered at last week's WGC-American Express Championship to gift-wrap the tournament to Tiger. Like Daly, I have a habit of coughing up a 3-putt or two at the worst times on the golf course. I don't know whether I'm a horrible putter because I hate putting or I hate putting because I'm a horrible putter. Either way, putting is the bane of my golfing existence.

At least I know that it's the swordsman and not the sword. However, Daly is quick to point out that his putting woes are largely due to equipment failure.

In an interview after his 1st round last week, Daly claimed that the hosel on his putter came loose late in his round. He also had the putter's lie measured and found that it was off by about 3 degrees.

But if I remember correctly, that's the ninth time this year that Daly has claimed to be playing with a defective putter. Daly ran into similar problems at this year's PGA Championship at Baltusrol and he had to putt with his Lob wedge for the last seven holes. Daly explained, "...the... putter I was knocking it 10 feet by. My putter came loose again. We made a replacement. I'm tired of replacing it. That's happened a few times this year where the head has fallen off. Dunlop has been working really hard to try to make a putter, and it still keeps coming off...I'm not getting another putter. I've had it. I'm just going to putt with my L-wedge. I'll figure something out tomorrow. I may have three or four putters in the bag tomorrow."

Dude, if you consistently experience problems with your flatstick, why don't you try something else? Is Dunlop forcing you to play their putter? No amount of endorsement money is worth playing equipment that you're not 100% comfortable. I'm sure that Dunlop isn't fond of you telling the world that their golf equipment falls apart. I know that I would never, ever consider buying a Dunlop golf club (to be fair, I felt the same way before Daly's diatribes). Dunlop would much rather have you play with something that would bring you success.

I know that if I worked at Dunlop, I'd be pretty PO'ed. I would probably try to "borrow" Tiger's backup Scotty Cameron Circle T and secretly disguise it as Daly's Dunlop Redneck and swap it with Daly's gamer when he wasn't looking. The next time Daly complains about his putter losing him a golf tournament, I would issue a press release saying, "Mr. Daly would have won, but his Scotty Cameron putter came loose!"