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Dave Wilson
Augusta, Ga. – On Monday, when Augusta National closed their gates to the patron saints because of bad weather, fans of Golf still found a historical place to pay tribute to golf history.
Just a kilometer from the iconic magnolia Lane Augusta await in the rain – young and old, foreign and home – to pay for a pilgrimage. As Simon said once (and maybe Garfunkel), everyone came to look for America.
It’s officially Masters Week in Augusta. But when you leave the I-20, go east to Washington Road and focus on Augusta National Golf Club, for the first time you will be welcomed by another tradition unlike others.
“Come today to see John Dala,” reads the signs outside Hooters, where since 1997 since 1997 big-larger-and-ares M&M-Eatin, Diet Coke-Swiggin ‘Legend has been preparing a whole week to sell its goods and take pictures with their people, with Marlboro Red hanging over its wool.
“John gave them my hero,” said Bret Bowen, resident Augusta. “He’s the best, the most core golfer he has ever been.”
Dal, who has not played in Masters since 2006, still appears every year and offers a sharp contrast to the sacredness of the world’s most famous golf course down the street. There are no phones, no cameras and no marlboros inside August National fences. In Hooters, however, there is another Augusta, a touchstone for fans to approach the Everyman icon where he can do what he needs.
“Eat some good food, smoke, sell some with —,” he said.
And sells a lot, uh, things. Last year they sold about $ 780,000 goods on the Hooters terrace on the Hooters terrace. This year he can exceed this due to Monday’s rain and a line that stretched further than one of Daly bombs from the tees. Hats – some with Dally’s face illustration, others encourage us to grasp and tear it – for $ 40, still selling all day. The box of his “short games” cigars with 20 4½ inch stogi, full of cinnamon and elegant floral notes, sell for $ 250. Were sold out on Wednesday morning.
He is the King of the Second Augustus. Airdna, which monitors short -term rental data, says that daily rental prices in the city on average $ 656 per night for nearly 4,000 statements during the masters, unlike $ 219 with about $ 1,500 for the rest of the year. On Friday last year’s tournament arrived at the regional airport Augusta 292 private nozzles. Most of the fans of long John are not in billionaire meetings, but they are devoted and many of them come up with gifts. Behind his shopping tables was a box of onion Vidalia, a well -known version of Sweet Georgia, which gave him “Dale of Vidalia”, an annual gift in the last decade. The Midwest fan also brought him the most famous export of their state.
“My Wisconsin guy always brings cheese,” he said. “I eat with — of the cheese and onion. You can’t beat the onion Vidalia. I don’t care who you are.”
Another resident of Wisconsin, Larry Stelow, who began to paint portraits for pets after retiring, brought Daly’s 16 -inch 20 -inch acrylic painting and a dog.
“It is. Badass.” Daily said when he took a photo with Stelow.
“The only thing I wanted was to be in the picture with John and the picture,” Stelow said. “It was strange for me.”
They have sold signed golf balls for $ 10 – “$ 1 for the ball, $ 9 for signature,” said one of his employees, along with pictures, shirts and replicas of PIN flags from his victory in 1991 in Crooked Stick in Carmel, Indiana, $ 100. He supports anything who buys and takes pictures with him.
And he also fulfilled Bowen’s dreams.
“John gave me a cigarette!” said.
Dala legend began in Crooked Stick in 1991, when an unknown 25 -year -old man, a former Golfer of the University of Arkansas, slipped into the PGA Championship as the ninth alternative and then won the whole thing, even though he had never seen it before.
Everyman golfers were in respect of his style of increasing-it-A-rip-it. In 1997 he became the first player to average more than 300 yards from the tees and from 1991 to 2002 led the PGA tour.
Outside the course was more Jack Black than Jack Nicklaus, an eccentric character with a parmice who tore cigs, drank beer, ate in Hooters – his favorite restaurant – and never took too seriously. On the pitch he moved the limits of golf fashion from Argyle to the anarchy.
Rebecca Gaines of Athens in Georgia said she had come to DAL for the last five years to see that she admired his style, which generally included neon, skulls, American flag, spraying painting – or any combination of the above.
The legendary golf writer Dan Jenkins once described Daly’s pants at the opening of the championship: “Motel 6 called from the states – they want their shower curtain to return.”
That’s how the gains feel. “It’s my favorite for your clothes,” she said. “That’s why he attracted me.”
Daly’s Caddy, Lance Odom, met him a few years ago when Caddying David Duval For a tour of the masters. Both of them hit it and Odom, which helps Dalaly maintain a line in motion, and photographs with fans and autograph seekers are surprised, saying they have never seen anything like orders, especially not among other golfers.
“People come here and it’s for the first time with Disney,” Odom said. “Every person who comes has a story. It’s like being with Michael Jordan. You can’t go to the gas station without people coming.”
And everyone has their reasons.
Scott Grennell of Hinesville in Georgia is not here for golf. He is at his lunch break from work and wanted it to calculate it.
“I grew up, I had two heroes: Pete Rose and John gave,” he said. “And today I had to meet.”
Ed Burns, an Englishman from Liverpool, who lives in Toronto, admires the feeling of populism and an American who brought into the sport on.
“He was one of the boys who changed it, such an ordinary person,” Burns said. “He won open. Dude has my admiration.”
Jason Gamble and his friends, who are part of the large golf group on WhatsApp, stopped on Wednesday before they went to Masters.
“He’s like the guy in your golf group. It’s just much Better, ”said Gamble, along with his friend Malik Davis, who is from Augusta. So when you see someone who causes the game to look as easily as John, it’s easy to appreciate this type of talent and it’s just a everyday man. He’s the one you want in your neighborhood.”
They gave them a pattern for them.
“John resonates with us. Do you see DBT?” He says and points to the hat. “This is the name of our golf group: drunk about the turn. John is our mascot. I love what it represents. It’s just an easy, free man. Smoking cigarettes, drinking and golf playing.”
And in some cases he even saved what could be a master’s disaster.
Pam Duvall took a job, booked Airbnb and rode three hours to meet a friend who promised her passages. But as soon as she got to Augusta, her friend was not found anywhere.
“It was as expensive as you could imagine,” she said. “I can’t do it with — up.”
But she had a advance plan.
“We said we were going to Hooters, and if we see John Dala and get a picture with him, it will do everything worth it,” Duvall said. “My children ordered their orders for what they wanted me to get them on the Masters. I got them signed by John Dala.
He had a share of health fighting in the last few years. In September 2020 he was diagnosed with bladder cancer. Daly’s treatment included surgery, one of the 16, which estimates that he had had both knees, shoulders, elbow and wrist over the last eight years, including both legs.
“I got more metal than Bionic Man Lee Majors,” he said. “But I still live, chlape. I’m like a lazarus, I just get back from F–ing of the dead.”
They said he said he hopes to continue to appear in Hooters every year until they have it. The appearance fee is not paid, but it is a two -sided arrangement for both parties that also have a business partnership. Dala’s son, John Dal II, is a golf player on Alma Mater, the University of Arkansas, and this week won his first collegial tournament at Columbia Spring Invitational, while the proud Papa praised the resistance of “Little John”.
“How’s Cool?” He said. “Birdie, Eagle, Birdie, Birdie, Birdie completes and got into the playoffs on 1-under. So hard was the course.”
However, do not expect to see Little John, who also has zero agreement with Hooters, when T -shirts will soon hang up.
“He will focus on golf,” he said.
In the last few years, the party has changed for DAL in Augusta. Originally, he would pull himself in the parking lot on a bus or RV and spent a week when people knocked on the door all night. Odom remembers a few years ago when someone slammed on the door before realizing it was Michael Phelps, who just wanted to hang.
The tent in the parking lot, which has changed to a big party, is no longer after Augusta National bought Strip Mall, where Hooters is located, and began to use it as parking for fans. But he is happy with his terrace on his side, his own little domination, where his fans can eat, smoke and buy some things.
“Maybe I will never get into the Hall of Fame, but you know what? It looks like I will always have fans,” he said. “I love them and they know it. We just connect.
Alexis Davis, resident of Augustus, who is a waitress in Hooters, said it was her favorite week of the year because of the cross -section of the fans that they attract.
“Golf people, they bring a different kind of energy,” she said. “They are enthusiastic, they are ready to go to masters or return from the masters and tell me all their stories.”
She said they gave them a perfect lead that would join the fun and on the golf sides.
“You can have both,” she said. “You can have golf, you can have a proper master’s clothing, but you can also relax and still enjoy.”
Or, as another fan they gave, Karson Angell, said:
“If you go to Masters and then you don’t come to Hooters, then where are you?”
