“I could drink a case to 35 beers in a day” - When John Daly spoke about playing golf drunk

US golfer John Daly surprised the world with his 1991 PGA Championship victory. He is known for the distances he is able to hit as well as the multiple controversies that shroud his image.

In an interview with Graham Bensinger in 2016, Daly revealed that he believed he played better when he was drunk.

"It's amazing where I would go, wherever I set course records or whatever, I would be barefooted drunk. Playing golf, making every 20-footer I looked at, I used to be able to shoot pool really good when I was, had a great buzz going. But if you get me sober and play pool, I wouldn't make a ball. I don't know, it's yeah."

Bensinger asked him whether it was the drinking that made him believe that he was playing much better than he actually was. To which, John Daly responded that he won money from people while playing pool, so according to him, it was not just a delusion.

"Well not when you're winning money from people playing pool. You know you're playing better. I mean your body's relaxed. You have confidence in yourself to do things more. Maybe it's more aggressive in a good way, not a bad way. I don't know."

He added that he was not making excuses to drink.

"I'm not making an excuse to drink or anything because, but I when I had a good buzz going I could play. I thought I could make everything, play really good golf. And I think it's just because the body is so loose and it's like freak, you know?"

Bensinger later asked him how much liquor he would drink daily when he was drinking the most. Daly's answer to this question was truly surprising.

"I don't know. I could drink probably a case to 35 beers easily in a day. Yeah, 35 or 40 easily in a day."

When Bensinger asked him how he felt after drinking 35 beers, John Daly replied that he would "still start drinking whisky or something."

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"I was a binge drinker" - John Daly

Butterfield Bermuda Championship - Round One

Graham Bensinger for his show, In Depth with Graham Bensinger, interviewed US golfer John Daly in 2016. During the interaction, Daly got candid about his drinking habits.

When Bensinger asked him how often he would drink, whether it was everyday, Daly interrupted him by saying that "he was never the guy" and that he was a binge drinker.

"I was a binge drinker, you know, and that's to me, I could go 2 months without drinking. But if I get on a binge, I could drink for three months or seven days or two days. It just depends, I mean when I wanted to quit drinking."

Bensinger mentioned that, in his book, Daly had said that if he was still drinking whisky, he would be dead. Daly responded that as people get older, they can't take that much liquor.

"I think with whiskey, if I was to drink a fifth to two-fifths a day like it had gotten going there for a while, you know. I think as we get older your body just can't take it, you know. I think that's kind of what I meant. If I keep doing that, I just don't see how anybody could drink that much whiskey and I don't know how the hell I did."

Bensinger recalled a story when a nurse told John Daly how high his blood alcohol level was. Day retold it, saying that he had passed out and was apparently dead for nine seconds.

"Yeah that was when I was kind of young - that was like in Morrilton Arkansas I think. I had passed out and they said they had to pump my stomach and all this. That I was dead for over nine seconds or something."

He added that his blood alcohol count was really high and it was something that happened to binge drinkers.

"They had to revive me and they said my blood alcohol that was almost up to 4: 3.7 or 3.6. It was just, they had never seen anything like it. But that happens a lot when people binge drink because it just keeps going. You just keep drinking and drinking. You never really sober up."

Although John Daly couldn't recollect the exact number, he said the nurse told him it was fatal.

"That number might be higher. I don't know it could have been two-point-something, but it was fatal. Whatever the hell that number was. I can't remember what it was. But she told me it was high and then they did tests and my liver was not too good, you know. I'm drinking so much."

The interview certainly brought to light John Daly's astounding experience.