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THE RIGHT SHOES AND THE RIGHT ATTITUDE
REQUIRED

IT ALL STARTED, like so many important moments in a woman’s life, with a really good blowout. If I hadn’t given myself one that morning, I might never have met John, and this whole story might never have happened. We hadn’t crossed paths before, even though we both lived in Memphis and knew a lot of the same people. A bunch of my friends had houses in TPC Southwind, which is the gated golf community where John lived at one point before we got married, and where I live now. I was even invited to parties at his house before, through our mutual acquaintances, but I’d always said no thanks. I was working for my dad at the time, selling cars at his car lot. My friend Kent, who owned another dealership in Marion, Arkansas, was good friends with John and had tried to introduce us a bunch of times. I’d always passed. I mean, I really could have cared less about meeting John Daly. It wasn’t just because I wasn’t into golf, either. “I don’t want to meet any more rednecks,” I said. “I’m not interested.”

But when Kent invited me to go along with him to the St. Jude Classic in June 2001, I finally caved. Not because I had changed my mind about meeting John. But if I straighten my hair and get myself all done up, then I’ve pretty much got to go out to lunch, or at least go somewhere I’ll be seen. I’ll keep making everyone I know crazy until I finally find someone to go with me. On this day, no one would even answer their telephones, so I was getting real bored and restless. I wanted to go out, even though it wasn’t like I was looking so hot or anything. In fact, I was especially overweight for me, like 138 pounds. (Just to put this into perspective, I didn’t weigh but 136 pounds right before my son was born.) So I was real chunky for me, with these big, chubby cheeks. And I was wearing my fat pants, which were these black pants that were the only thing that looked halfway decent, an orange tank top, and some red flip-flops. But my hair was done, and I was ready to go out. So when Kent finally picked up his phone and told me he was going to Southwind to check out this annual charity event, I figured it was better than sitting around all day doing nothing.

I met Kent over at Southwind, which is on the east side of Memphis in an upscale suburb called Germantown. We walked down to the course, and it was a real nice day. The event is a big deal in Memphis, so the whole place was packed, and we spotted a bunch of people we knew. We stood and watched the play for a while, and then John made the turn, which is right there at the tenth hole. He came over to say hello, and Kent introduced us. Right away I was struck by the fact that John wasn’t anything like I had thought he would be. I was expecting this big scruffy redneck voice, and he was very soft-spoken, with this sort of gentle nature to go along with his way of speaking. And he had big blue eyes that were real pretty. I still wasn’t exactly interested in him, or anything like that, but he was a lot cuter, and much sweeter, in person than I had imagined. We followed him for a few holes. I knew John was supposed to be some kind of real good player, but I couldn’t tell from what I saw, and I wasn’t any more riveted by golf than I’d ever been. But I was glad to be out of work for the afternoon and having a nice time.

Afterward, we all met up in the parking lot, and a little group of us ended up just kind of hanging out there for a while, kidding around and talking. John wasn’t flirting with me, exactly, but I noticed that he was paying me a little extra attention. It was all right by me, but I didn’t think too much about it.

I ended up leaving Kent and John and going off with some friends who worked at the Silver Star Hotel and Casino, where I used to hang out quite a bit. John was staying at the Horseshoe Tunica, and he’d decided to have a little party in his room that night. He eventually called one of these mutual friends and said that he wanted me to come over. By that point I was with my good friend Lauren, and we were already on our way down to the casino, so we said we’d stop by John’s room. But then we decided to go to the Peabody instead, which is this historic hotel in downtown Memphis that’s known for having ducks that swim around in a fountain by the bar. But once we were on our way to the Peabody, we felt bad ditching John after we said we’d meet up with him, so we changed our plans again. We must have turned the car around at least two times, and we were just giggling, laughing, and having fun the whole way there.

By the time we got to the Horseshoe, there were maybe a dozen people partying with John in his room. He’d been gambling and had won quite a bit of money. Plus he’d played very well at the tournament that day. And as I soon learned, just how well John does on the course, and at the slots, is often the key to whether he’s a whole lot of fun or the source of a whole lot of broken glass.

Even back then, I knew he had a reputation for being wild. I didn’t read the newspaper much, so I wasn’t aware of the details, but my friends who were his neighbors had told me things, and I knew there was always something or other going on with him. But that didn’t scare me at all. Like a lot of other women, I’ve always thought I could tame the wild ones, and the challenge of trying to do so was part of the fun for me. Plus, John was real nice, and it seemed like maybe all of that craziness was behind him. He was real attentive to me all night, making sure I had a drink and was having a good time. And then, as it got late, everyone started leaving, until it was finally just the two of us. We sat on the couch together and had a drink, and he decided he wanted to come clean to me about everything. He told me he’d been married three times, and that he had two daughters he didn’t see as much as he would have liked. He really seemed to be sorry for the mistakes he’d made in the past, and to be trying to live better now. I looked into those big blue eyes of his, and I believed every word of it.

I thought I’d finally found someone who was going to be good to me and give me a high quality of life. I ended up spending the night, and we had a real nice time. More than that, I’m not going to say, thank you very much. I’m not someone who believes in talking about what goes on in the bedroom. That might sound funny, given that I was about to marry a sex addict and get involved in everything that’s imaginably wild and crazy. But back then, before the strippers and Hooters girls, I still thought he was a nice guy. So let’s just leave it at that.

I left the next day and went to Pickwick Lake, which is about thirty minutes from the Horseshoe. I was with a bunch of my other friends, drinking and carrying on.

“Where have you been?” they were asking me. More like teasing me, because they could tell from the way I was acting that something was up.

“I’ve been out with this guy, John Daly,” I said.

None of the girls knew who John was. But the guys sure knew a thing or two.

“John Daly, the golfer?” they said.

“I know he’s got a real bad reputation,” I said.

They started giving me a hard time about him and how nuts he was.

“I think I’m going to marry him,” I said.

I was laughing when I said it, like just kidding around. But somehow, I knew that I really meant it.

The weird thing, which I didn’t know at the time, was that John had said the same thing to Kent right after he met me at the golf course.

“I’m going to marry her,” John had said, just like that.

Later on, after we did get married, John and I put it all together, and we laughed with our friends about it. Somehow, he and I both knew it was right.

What I didn’t know was that John may have seemed like he was coming clean about his past, but he had a way of telling only as much as was convenient for him and leaving out, or covering up, anything he didn’t feel like talking about. When he’d told me about his three ex-wives, he also mentioned that he was currently engaged to a woman named Shanae who lived in Dallas. But he gave me a line about her cheating on him, and he had already been planning to break it off with her. He made her out to be so bad that I didn’t think much about the fact that he was technically cheating on her with me; it sounded like it was already over between them.

He failed to tell me, as I was leaving Memphis to spend the day at Pickwick Lake, that Shanae was flying in from Dallas to see him. And though he may have already made up his mind that he was going to marry me, as far as Shanae knew, he was still very much planning to marry her. The St. Jude Classic was still under way, so she was walking around the course with John, totally clueless the whole time that he’d been with me the night before and that he’d decided I was going to be his fourth wife, even though she was still wearing the five-karat diamond ring he had given her the previous year. There was even an article in the local newspaper about John Daly’s fiancÉe and her big diamond ring.

I didn’t know a thing about it. Not that I would have cared, to be honest with you. I’m sorry if the way everything went down was painful for Shanae, but it was like that was just the way it had to be. I don’t know quite how to explain it, but it was like things with John just had this momentum to them, and I never had any doubt in my mind that we were going to get married, no matter what obstacles might seem to stand in the way. Plus, he could be very convincing, and so it never occurred to me that there was any side to the story other than the one he’d told me, about Shanae being a cheater and no good. Anyhow, after the tournament, he went out of town, as I later learned, to break things off with her. The next thing I knew, he was back in Memphis, staying at the Grand Casino, and I was seeing him every day.

Now, I had a few things to take care of myself before I was free to become Mrs. Daly. For starters, I had two really nice boyfriends at the time. My son Austin was nineteen months old, and I’d never married his dad, so I was a single mom. And both of these guys really loved my kid, which was a big part of why I liked them. And both of them were very upset when I broke things off. In fact, one of them called me after I’d met John but before I had a chance to let him down easy.

“I’m going to John Daly’s Make-A-Wish event,” he said. “Do you want to go with me?”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m already going.”

“With who?” he said.

“John Daly,” I said.

I could tell he was upset from the way his voice sounded all tight and weird.

“Oh my God, he’s going to love you,” he said. “You’re going to end up marrying him. I’ll never see you again.”

“No, don’t be silly,” I said.

But my ex-boyfriend ended up being right about at least one of the things he predicted.

John was always real active with the Boys and Girls Clubs of America and the Make-A-Wish Foundation, as I later learned, because of a young leukemia patient he’d met and been inspired by at a 1994 Make-A-Wish event. And his annual Boys and Girls Clubs fundraiser, which he hosted at the golf course he had first played on near his boyhood home in Dardanelle, Arkansas, was always a big deal for him. Once we were married, it was a total nightmare for me, as something about being back home brought out the worst in John, and I’ve never seen him behave so bad as he did at those events. But that first year, he was on his best behavior. I went up there to Arkansas with him, and we all stayed at his house, which is on the golf course, and we had a lot of fun. I had Austin with me. And John had both of his daughters—Shynah, from his marriage to ex-wifey number two, and Sierra, from his marriage to ex-wifey number three—who were staying with him for the summer. And his mom and dad, and his brother and sister-in-law, who is one of my best friends to this day, all lived in houses nearby, so I met them, and we all got along real well. I was happy, and I thought I would be for a long time.

After that, I started traveling with John, and because Austin was so young at the time, he went everywhere with us. John was real good with Austin, and it was like we were this instant family. John was very nice and attentive to me and to my son, and I couldn’t have asked for anybody better.

A few weeks after we met, I went to my first PGA event, which was at the Colorado Golf Club outside of Denver. I still remember that they make the best chocolate milkshakes there. I’m a big eater, and my mom has even said that sometimes she swears the only time she sees me smile is when I’ve just eaten something delicious, so a lot of times I remember a place by the meal we had there. Sometimes it’s all I can remember of a place, because of how much we traveled and how all of the cities and golf courses started to blend together.

Now, when we got to Denver, I had never walked a golf course before. Even in my fat pants, I was relatively in shape, but when you’ve never walked a golf course before, let’s just say it’s a long way to walk. On top of that, the altitude was killing me. So I was going along on the first day, trying to pay attention to how John was playing, all eager to show him how supportive and sweet his new girlfriend could be. But I was about to pass out. I remember going up this hill, and I literally came close to falling to my knees. I’ve never had that feeling before. It was horrible.

There was a man in front of me who had a bottle of water in his hand.

“Excuse me,” I said. “Can I please have a drink of your water?”

I actually drank from a complete stranger, and I finished his whole bottle of water too, every last drop. I felt like I was dying.

And that’s not all. I swore up front that if I was going to tell on John in this book, it was only fair to tell on myself too. So I’ve got something to come clean about. The other reason I had such a hard time during the first day of the tournament had nothing to do with the altitude. It had to do with how much I hated golf and golf clothes, and the stupid fashion choice this inspired me to make.

Now, I was totally nervous about fitting in with the other golfers’ wives and girlfriends when I first started traveling with John. I wanted to be dressed right and look cute, but I didn’t know anything about golf, so I had no idea what that meant. And I didn’t know anyone in that world, so I had no one to ask.

So, yes, I had bought some collared shirts to look the way I thought a golf wife should look. And, yes, I was wearing my fat pants because I was still real chunky back then, and they were all I could fit into. But I was determined that my shoes were going to be cute. So I had on these open-toed, high-heeled Donald Pliner sandals that I really liked. Well, you try walking in wet grass in opentoed, high-heeled sandals. My feet were sliding through my shoes, and my toes were all cut up and covered in blisters. I swear, they should have Band-Aid stands out there on the fairway. I have no idea how I even lasted so long, but by the ninth hole I was in the clubhouse, buying myself socks and spiked golf shoes. Now, collared shirts are bad enough, but I truly never thought I’d be caught dead in golf shoes, and let me tell you, I never will be again. I sure learned my first valuable lesson about golf that day: Footwear is crucial. I said good-bye to my heels and even my cute flip-flops. Instead, I soon bought tennis shoes in every color and matched them to my outfits from then on out.

Between my impractical shoes and the elevation, I was far from the polished golf wife I’d hoped to be. I was a complete and total mess. By the time John got done playing, he couldn’t help but laugh at me. Not in a mean way, but because I looked so miserable, and I was so wide-eyed about something that had been his life for fifteen years.

“I told you to be careful with the altitude and all that stuff,” he said.

Luckily, I soon got help from some of the other players’ wives. Golfers travel more than other professional athletes—there were years in our marriage when John was home less than thirty days out of 365—and so their wives are more likely to go along with them than in the NBA or whatever they have in baseball. During my first months traveling with John, he and Austin and I were really excited to be this new little family unit that did everything together, so I didn’t spend too much time with the wives. But the ones that I did meet sure saved me. There was so much to learn, and they were so good to me. I truly would have been lost without them. Like, for example, I remember I had Austin with me one day when I first married John, and I was trying to push his baby carriage across the course, which isn’t any easier than walking through grass in Donald Pliner heels. Plus, I was finding that I was not in as good shape as I’d thought I was, but I was not going to miss a hole of golf, because I was the new girlfriend. Mia Parnevik, who’s married to Jesper Parnevik, came up to me.

“Why do you push the baby every week?” she said. “You should take him to the daycare.”

I didn’t know that there was a daycare, and John never would have thought to tell me. In fact, the PGA does right by its players and their families, and they have a really nice daycare and school set up at every tournament. And it’s not strangers in each city, either. A group of girls travel with the PGA, so they’ll be familiar to the kids, and they bring the same toys. Austin went to the daycare for five years, and there were a few girls who worked there the whole time, so they basically helped to raise him. The PGA really puts a lot of thought and money into making the players’ families feel comfortable and welcome out on the road. And every time a baby is born, they always send gifts and flowers. It’s really a shame that John, or Tiger, or whoever, couldn’t be happy family guys because the Tour caters so much to that. There’s no denying that all of the travel is hard, and there’s a lot of pressure, but with the money that can be made, and the luxury, it could be a really beautiful life.

There was a lot to learn about how to take advantage of all of the perks and how to travel as much as we did with small kids. Marci Blake, who’s married to Jay Don Blake, was like my own personal PGA Tour guide, and we became really good friends and are still close to this day. Some of the other wives I met right away were Diane, who’s Frank Lickliter’s fiancÉe—I don’t think they’ve ever married. She was extremely kind. I always thought of Diane as the perfect Tour wife, so I kind of used her as the model of what to wear: tasteful, because I like to dress up and look nice, but not too preppy, maybe tailored slacks with a collared shirt (I know, I know), which I had gotten John’s logo sewn onto.

We traveled constantly, right from the beginning. We went to the British Open and all around the States. In between John’s matches and appearances, we went back to his house in Arkansas. One day during the last week of July, we were there with Austin, and John had his girls there too. It was one of those days when there were a lot of kids running around the house, and there was just a lot going on. John and I were both passing through the back bedroom at the same time when all of a sudden, he turned to me and stopped me from walking out into the next room.

“I’ve got to be in Vegas for an outing on Friday,” he said. “Do you want to go with me and get married?”

“Well, I guess so,” I said.

I know that doesn’t sound very romantic. But it all happened so naturally; I think it hadn’t really sunk in what a big deal this was.

“Okay,” he said. “What kind of ring do you want?”

“It doesn’t matter,” I said. “Whatever.”

And that was it. Fifty-three days after I met John, we were married.

I guess it wasn’t much of a proposal. I don’t think we even kissed. It wasn’t that we didn’t love each other. It was just that we had become this wonderful family without even having to try, and it almost felt like we were already married. We went to the jewelry store when we were back in Memphis, and John gave me a real nice four-karat square-cut diamond. I thought it was beautiful, but John had other ideas.

“It’s not big enough,” he kept saying. “I want you to have a five-karat.”

A few months later, he told me that he needed to get my ring cleaned—that old trick—and when he brought my ring back, it had a new and even bigger diamond on it that was something like 5.8 karats. John was always buying me jewelry and always doing me kindly like that. At least in the beginning.

The whole wedding process was as laid back as the proposal, but I felt happy and clear that I was making the right decision. He went and got a ring for himself, and I went and got a dress. I went to this store called Ballew in Memphis and bought something right off the rack. We met back up and went to the airport. I have a funny picture of John carrying my dress and a case of beer. That was pretty much it. He was doing an outing for Bally’s Casino, so we flew to Vegas on their private plane. My friend Lauren was there and John’s friend Steve Mata, who worked at this golf company called Titleist. We had all been at the British Open together, so the four of us were real comfortable around each other. There was a lot of drinking. There was a lot of money. There was a lot of everything. Lauren and I would get up in the morning and start drinking mimosas and shopping at the casino. While we were doing that, John was gambling. And, for once, everything he touched was magic. Whether he was playing blackjack or the $100 slots, everything would be $100,000 or $300,000. It was just crazy. Lauren and I went and met him the night before I got married, and all of us were drinking champagne and eating dinner down by the slot machines. They don’t let most people do that, but the casino set up a special table for John. What they probably wanted to do was close him down because the machines would not stop winning for him. But they treated him like royalty, and he kept playing. By the time he was done and we went up to our room, we had more than a million dollars spread out on the bed, just like in a movie or something. It was wild. I don’t even think it really registered with me. It didn’t seem real.

John loved to gamble. And he loved to win. So that put him in a real good mood and that whole trip was magical, even though the actual wedding was simple. We had our ceremony at the chapel at Bally’s Las Vegas, which looked like a pretty little church. I carried flowers and John looked handsome in a cream-colored blazer and slacks, which was dressed up by his standards. We said traditional vows in front of my mom and a handful of friends, including a few casino hosts and a bookie, and we were newlyweds.

For a long time, John thought of me as a good luck charm. Now, a lot of other people, including his ex-wifey number three, had different ideas about me. They liked to say I was just marrying him for his money.

But the thing was, I didn’t need his money. And he had far less at his disposal than it might have seemed, even when he was winning.

He had broken it down for me when we first met.

“I’ve been married three times,” he said. “I gave this one everything. I gave that one everything. I have to pay $20,000 a month in child support. I have a little money, but not much.”

“Well, is there anything left for me?” I said. “I don’t require a lot. But is there just a little bit left?”

“Oh yeah,” he said. “There’s a little for you.”

There may have been enough money for him to take on a fourth wife and stepchild. But there was also a lot of gambling debt. So in order to avoid taking that on as my own, and to shut up everyone who was calling him and telling him not to get married again and accusing me of being a gold digger, I asked for a prenup. We verbally agreed that it would go away when we had a child, or after a couple of years. I figured it was the best thing for me. That way, when I walked into a room, or I met his agents or sponsors, I could feel normal, instead of as if everyone was talking about me. Of course, we were all drinking when we did the prenup and neither of us actually read it. I never even looked at it until three years later, when I was filing for a divorce the first time. Let’s just say now, that’s not a good idea.

But we were happy, and in love, and I didn’t think too much about it. I had also learned, even before we were married, that there were certain conversations about money that were off limits. One night I was with John at the Grand in Memphis, and he was playing slots with these $500 chips. So he’d put in $500, and then maybe another $500, and that would be one pull. I almost couldn’t stand there and watch him do it. All I could think about was how much I could buy for the house, and for Austin, or even just how many pairs of shoes I could get for myself with that kind of money. I mean, I might spend a lot of money, but I come home with bags to show for it, and I’m usually buying something that’s a timeless piece that I’m going to have forever. Throwing it away like that seemed like such an insane waste.

I’m not afraid of a lot in this life, though, so I decided to speak up.

“You know, every time you drop one of those, that’s my rent and utilities for the month,” I said. “That’s so much money. Do you ever want me to say something?”

“If you’re ever doing without something, then tell me to stop gambling,” he said. “But if not, then don’t interrupt me while I’m playing.”

Well, as long as I went along with what John wanted, he was very good to me, and I never was doing without something. Or, more truthfully, there was never a time I was doing without something when my parents weren’t kind enough to step in and lend us some money. So I never said anything about his gambling again. And even that first conversation wasn’t an argument or anything like that. It was more like I was asking him some questions and getting some facts straight about what kind of boundaries we needed to have. In the beginning we were winning, so I didn’t think I’d ever really have to say anything about his gambling. In fact, our winning streak didn’t show any sign of slowing down, even after we got home from Vegas.

Our friend John Sisinni, who was the casino host at the Horseshoe, planned us a big reception for all of the friends and family who weren’t able to be at our actual wedding. It was a lot of fun, except I was actually late to my own party because John and I were playing slots, and we won around $300,000, and the machine wouldn’t stop paying out. That’s how big we won. Again. I didn’t even have the chance to change before I went into the reception hall, and there are now keepsake pictures of me wearing a tank top and these ridiculous pants with big red roses on them. I didn’t look good at all. But it was a great party. It was at the Horseshoe’s nightclub, Bluesville, and the casino’s owner, Jack Binion, paid for everything, which was so generous. My parents didn’t have to spend a dime. There were about a thousand guests, a big buffet and an open bar, and Hootie & the Blowfish played. They were good friends with John, and at one point before we got married, he had been out of town somewhere with them and had them on the telephone to me singing that “I Go Blind” song. See, John could be romantic. And I had graduated from high school in the 1990s, so they were a big deal band for me. It was like a fairy tale to have them playing at my wedding party. Of course, looking back, they also played at Tiger and Elin’s special day, and Elin and I could easily trade notes and sex therapists’ numbers now. So, even though I love each and every one of them as people, maybe Hootie & the Blowfish are bad luck as a wedding band.

There didn’t seem to be anything but the best possible luck on the horizon for the first year of our marriage. In late August, we went to Germany for the BMW International Open. This was a major event for John. On the PGA circuit, the important tournaments are called Majors, and John hadn’t won one of these since 1995. Since this was in Europe, it wasn’t quite as big of a deal, but almost. And after several years of losing, which had seen his ranking drop to that of the 507th player in the world—which, I mean, come on, there can’t be many more people than that even playing golf professionally, can there?—he was on his way back up to the top. Everything went great from the first day that we arrived. John was playing well, so he was in a good mood, which made me happy. And the people who ran the tournament were so welcoming to us.

The only problem was that, sure, I had learned some things during that first disastrous event in Denver, but I still hadn’t walked that many golf courses, and so I was just lost from the get-go. Plus, here we were in a foreign country, where everyone was speaking a different language from me. I would be watching John, and then I’d go off with one crowd when they started moving, and by the time I’d realized they were going the wrong way, it was too late for me to cut across the green like I was supposed to do. I’d see John playing all the way over there, across the grass, and I’d be standing on this other hole, so far away, and wondering how I was going to get back across to him. And that was on the good days.

Now, the last day of the tournament wasn’t such a good day. It had started out great. John was leading the tournament, and he was about to win an important event for the first time in six years. With his new wife cheering him on. It was a big story. And it was a big moment in our relationship. I was his Lady Luck back then, and after he played so well the first day, he figured it must be the outfit I was wearing, which was a pink shirt with his logo on it, and my trusty fat girl black pants. So, the next day, I put on the same thing. Actually, I wore that exact outfit for three days in a row.

After I got dressed at the hotel that morning, I went through my bag, which John had packed for me. He’s a neat freak to begin with, plus he traveled so much that he could literally pack for two months in one suitcase. I got together everything I’d need for the day, so I’d be ready to leave for the course.

We went downstairs and got in our courtesy car, and while we were driving to the BMW, things started getting weird. I turned to John.

“How many cars do you see in front of us?” I asked.

“What?” he said.

There were three beige cars all lined up in front of us.

“Why are there three cars in front of us?” I asked.

“What is wrong with you?” he said.

“I don’t know,” I said. “I’m just seeing things.”

I turned and looked at him more closely.

“Oh, God, I see two of you,” I said.

Then I got what had happened.

“I think I took the wrong pill,” I said.

I usually kept my Phentermine, which I was taking to lose my extra weight, so I could wear something other than black pants again someday, in my purse. And my Ambien, which I needed because I couldn’t sleep at all overseas, went in my overnight bag. But because John had packed my stuff for me, everything was all switched around.

I was dozing off in the car, but there was no time to go back. And when we got to the course, John didn’t want to leave me alone, but he had to go and tee off.

“Just help me get to the clubhouse,” I said.

He half carried me in there, and I was basically sleeping on the table.

I started calling people from home, hoping they could tell me what to do.

The best thing we could come up with was that I should take a diet pill and drink an espresso, which I recall tasted terrible, in hopes of waking myself up. I couldn’t be asleep when he won the tournament.

So I did all of that, and it helped some. But I was still real out of it.

John told me later that I walked outside and headed right over to where he was hitting the ball with his three wood. I guess I thought I was being supportive. Only I was basically sleepwalking, and when he swung back, he just about hit me in the head. I got myself to where I was at least able to walk and follow him around while he played. But then, all of a sudden, he was on the eighteenth hole, and I was all the way across the lake. So I was standing there like an idiot, wondering how I was going to get over to where he was. Well, I didn’t. So when he won the biggest tournament of our marriage, and one of the biggest of his career, I wasn’t even there to run up and hug him. I had to walk up a few minutes late because of the Ambien. At least we were getting along real well in those days, so we just laughed about that one. See, this is good for me to remember: There were happy days together.

© 2011 Sherrie Daly