THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, July 12, 1996 TAG: 9607120613
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY STEVE CARLSON, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: WILLIAMSBURG LENGTH: 98 lines
Joe Daley left Old Dominion in 1983 and immediately put his finance degree to good use.
About seven years later,he decided he would rather play than work for a living.
Daley surprised Monarchs' golf coach Murray Rudisill with a question in the early 1990s. He called to ask Rudisill if he thought Daley could make it as a professional golfer.
``I'm never going to tell anybody he doesn't have a shot,'' Rudisill said. ``My reaction was - and I didn't say this - that you might could make a few checks, but you're going to really have to improve a lot before you can make it.''
Daley has improved a lot since his playing days at ODU, which he originally came to as a walk-on. He's a PGA Tour rookie with salt-and-pepper hair at age 35, when most pro athletes are retiring, not starting out. Daley is the second-oldest rookie on the PGA Tour this year behind Allen Doyle, 47, the oldest rookie in Tour history.
Though they look nothing alike, Daley is sometimes mistaken for John Daly by gallery members. He has gotten plenty of the more-famous Daly's messages in his locker, but none of his checks.
Daley, who shot an opening-round 72 Thursday in the Michelob Championship at Kingsmill, has taken a circuitous route to the Tour.
``It's really hard to get out here,'' Daley said. ``The big thing once you get out here is adapting to everything that's going on around.''
After college, Daley worked in financial institutions loaning money in Martinsville and Virginia Beach. Then he hooked up with a plumbing, heating and air conditioning company, working as a credit manager in Annapolis, Md., and Florence, S.C.
``I got married, had a couple of houses, bills, cars - all that jazz,'' Daley said. ``I'd played in a few Hogan Tour qualifiers, but never qualified and I'd throw my stuff in my car and go home. I figured out the only way to get really good at it was to do it full time.''
A divorce and a move to South Carolina started him moving in that direction.
Finally in 1992, Daley quit his job, moved to Florida and flew to Vancouver, British Columbia, to attempt to qualify for the Canadian Tour. He qualified, flew home and then drove to Canada the next week to play his first season.
He had become a pro golfer almost a decade after leaving ODU.
``I guess he got tired of wearing a coat and tie to work,'' Rudisill said.
Daley played three weeks on the Canadian Tour, then married current wife Carol, whom he had met in Virginia Beach.
But after one season, Daley was laid out by back problems. Two herniated discs put him out of commission until August of 1993.
``I couldn't sleep in a bed for three weeks,'' Daley said. ``I slept on the living room floor.''
He worked it out with weight training - Daley is a prodigious weight-trainer, with Popeye-like forearms forged through six hours a week minimum of lifting.
He is 6-foot-3, 157 pounds. At Memphis last month, Tour players had the option of getting their body fat checked. Daley's was an unheard-of 3.1 percent.
``The woman didn't know what to say to me after her machine printed it out,'' Daley said. ``And I eat a lot.''
While he waited to get back to golf, Daley got a job as a banquet waiter, a job he kept until last December.
When he had recuperated enough to return to golf, he would play in the day and work at night. There were enough Florida mini-tour events within a short drive of his Kissimmee, Fla., home that Daley could put in a full day playing in a tournament, shower and then spend the night waiting tables, get up the next day and do it again.
``I needed to make money and I was working on my game and improving at the same time,'' Daley said.
He gained additional experience playing in Chile, Jamaica and South Africa. And he played in as many stateside PGA tournament open qualifiers as he could get to.
Finally last fall, on his fifth trip to the Tour's Qualifying School, Daley earned his card.
``Everybody out here knows the other people here have earned their way,'' Daley said. ``Nobody has been given it. That's the beauty of it.''
Nothing is given to you once you earn a playing card, either. Daley is not doing badly on his first trip through the circuit. He's cashed checks in seven of 14 starts, and with $49,949 is 159 on the money list.
The highlight of Daley's year came two weeks ago at the Greater Hartford Open. Daley shot a 64 in the first round to share the lead with Greg Norman.
``It was sweet, I don't know how else to say it,'' Daley said. ``I've been practicing smart, working out, eating well, getting plenty of sleep. I'm doing a lot of the right things I need to do to perform well, and it's starting to come around.''
Daley finished tied for 12th at Hartford and earned $28,500. It would have taken the former waiter a long time to make that in tips.
``It's been almost like drinking a good glass of wine,'' Daley said. ``I'm thankful to be out here every day.''
Like good wine, Daley's shot on Tour was years in the making. ILLUSTRATION: [Color Photo]
MOTOYA NAKAMURA
The Virginian-Pilot
Joe Daley, at 35 the PGA Tour;s second-oldest rookie, shot a 72 in
Thursday's first round at Kingsmill. by CNB