As a golf fan, you must have ordered the ‘John Daly’ drink at some point. The refreshing concoction of vodka, iced tea, and lemonade gives a zing, quite fitting after the man it’s named after. But do you know how this drink came about? Of course, the man, the myth, the legend invented it himself; that’s not surprising at all. Or is it? Well, a new jaw-dropping lore from John Daly‘s childhood might say otherwise.

Discussing the various antics of Daly in a new podcast of Skratch, Chad Mumm recounts a time the golfer shared with him the real story of his drink’s inception. They were in Vegas for a conference when Mumm asked Daly if the drink was a play on the non-alcoholic Arnold Palmer Drink? Daly nods his head in affirmation and then, in all seriousness, says, “I invented that when I was nine years old!… We had a group of 9-year-olds who were wasted off their b*tts.”

Now, the golfer has often claimed that he started drinking before he turned 10, and that was hard to believe. But this new story might actually shed light on the real incident. The story goes all the way back to Darnell, Arkansas, when Daly’s team won the Piggly-Wiggly-sponsored Little League Town Championship. The win demanded a celebration, and so the entire group of little nine-year-old boys went back to Daly’s house. His parents were not around, which made young Daly’s mind race.

“My mom used to make sweet tea in the sun…So, I went and got her sweet tea, and I pulled some lemonade, and I mixed it all together in a big jug,” he shares, but of course, that was not all. “I got daddy’s vodka, and I dumped the whole thing in there.”

After a while, they had a huge jug full of the alcoholic concoction. The young boys then lined up shot glasses, all in classic bar style, and took a shot. “It tasted pretty good,” recalled Daly. “So, we did another one, and then we did a third one.” Eventually, they were all drunk.

Now, if that was not comically outrageous, young Daly knew that this drink was going to get them fame. As the nine-year-olds hovered around, he looked at his brother and said, “If one of us becomes famous, we’re going to have to patent this drink. It’s either going to be called the Jamie Daly or the John Daly.” In hindsight, the prophecy came true. Decades later, that backyard concoction is now golf’s most recognizable drink.

Of course, with Daly, most of the stories are either history or part folklore. But Wells Adams, upon hearing this from Mumm, said exactly what each one of us thought: “We don’t condone underage drinking, but why am I not shocked that that story is true, right?”

To which Mumm replies, “It’s one of those things that even if it’s not, I’m glad that it exists.”

Well, the chances are that this lore is actually true. The commercial version of this drink debuted in 2005, when a bartender mixed it up during a Daly tournament run. Daly did not like it, called it a trademark infringement, and five years later founded the GIASI Beverage. In 2013, the Original John Daly Cocktail was being sold in the market.

His business acumen took a high from there. And why won’t it? It involved alcohol after all. In 2023, he teamed up with Good Boy Vodka and launched a line of ready-to-drink canned cocktails. That venture exploded, and the company saw a sales increase of 930% that year!

Yet, the origin of Daly’s love for alcohol is a little unsettling. There are several funny stories about a drunk Daly. But the long-term effect of it has clouded his career throughout.

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The darker thread behind the joke

For all the laughter about John Daly’s casual wastage at the age of nine, the story is eerie. This addiction would go on to shape nearly every phase of his career. There will come a time when the golfer could chug 50-60 cans of beer in a day! That too during his prime playing years. It does not sound as braggy as Daly might make it to be. For him, he played some of his best golf while being drunk. But he also faced the consequences.

The history is out there of Daly’s eventual destructive pattern. There are 456 pages in the PGA Tour’s archive, documenting the golfer’s 18 years of drinking incidents.

He has been fined nearly $100,000, suspended five times, and placed on probation six times. He has often walked himself into rehab programs, first in 1993 and then in 1997.

Daly ended up destroying his hotel room at the Players Championship and was hospitalized for chest pains.

But that’s not the whole story. He, at one point in time, was so dependent on substance abuse that his blood alcohol level reached around 3.6 to 3.7. To put it into context, a medical staff member said that they had never seen that much reading ever in a living patient.

In that light, the childhood anecdote loses its funny essence.

“He had already gone there even as a nine-year-old kid. He’s crazy, man,” says Chad Mumm. And he is right. This is indeed crazy. Daly didn’t just invent a cocktail at nine. He stepped into the chapter of lifelong struggle that would ultimately derail his career.