For three minutes on the 18th tee at the Deerfield Golf Club in Mississippi, golfer John Daly was as good as dead.
Daly passed out after playing in the searing heat Saturday — temperatures soared into the high 90s — but didn’t seem to be in distress until he and his partner, Will Dottley, finished the 18th tee, Golf Channel reported. John suffered a collapsed lung , blacked out, and fell, he told ESPN.
“I was having a great time and then suddenly — boom — I’m falling down while on the 18th tee and the next thing I know I’m in an ambulance. It was scary.”
As they waited for an ambulance, a group of spectators, who’d gathered for the tournament not expecting to see one of the participants brush death, rushed to his side. A nurse was among them and administered CPR.
“I had my arm around him when he went down. He had no pulse and wasn’t breathing for close to three minutes,” said Dottley. “It was kind of a miracle.”
John was rushed to the Baptist Medical Center in Jackson. Though Daly is known to smoke 40 cigarettes and drink a dozen cans of Diet Coke every day, the malady that felled him — a collapsed lung — may have been caused by a simple injury suffered last week.
Photo evidence that John Daly is back on the golf course one day after collapsing at Deerfield, going to hospital. pic.twitter.com/JwKjkDss7A
— David Brandt (@davidbrandtAP) August 30, 2015
That’s when he helped his son put a new tire on his golf cart and hurt his hand in the process; it was heavily taped during the tournament. Add in an old rib injury, and you have a perfect storm.
“I had to change my swing some to get a good grip, and the doctor said the changed motion is likely what led to the collapsed lung.”
The bum lung didn’t keep John out of commission for long. He was released later that day, and by the evening, he was back at the country club. He teed off a second round in the tournament Sunday.
“He had no pain in his ribs, everything was good,” said friend Billy Allen.
Daly is only 49 and has won two majors. But he’s perhaps just as well known for lighting cigarettes on the course and his rather colorful fashion sense, the Washington Post added. Just this month, he threw his club into Lake Michigan during the PGA championship.
[Photo Courtesy Richard Heathcote/Getty Images]
