John Daly explains what made Tiger Woods so much better than him

John Daly is, as I wrote earlier in the day, one of the most naturally gifted golfers the game has ever seen. It’s something even Tiger Woods has acknowledged — here’s an anecdote Daly loves to tell about it. It was during the 2004 Target World Challenge and Daly had just completed the Wednesday pro-am with some friends and was in the clubhouse drinking and telling stories when Tiger Woods walked into the room. “Tiger’s there in his workout clothes and I said, ‘Tiger come have a beer with us, man,’” Daly recalls. Asked by the host whether he thinks he has more natural talent than Woods, he dismissed the idea, instead paying tribute to Tiger’s short game (which, he says, was comparable to Jack Nicklaus’ in his prime) and adding that Tiger’s grind-it-out mindset is what propelled him to the heights.