Golf icon John Daly has gone into detail about the moments he found out that he had bladder cancer, before revealing that he has been in remission for a number of years.
Daly, aged 58, made a recent appearance on the ‘Like a Farmer’ podcast and was frank about his health issues.
He revealed that while he’d like to be playing golf at a higher level than he has in the past, the former PGA Championship and Open Championship winner says his multiple health issues prevent that.
‘I can’t set goals for golf anymore,’ Daly admitted on the show. ‘Fighting the bladder cancer and all that crap with all the surgeries, it’s not an excuse it’s just nobody can play great when they’re not healthy.
‘I get out there and I do my best I can, but I still wanna play golf, I still wanna play on the Champions Tour. I just wanna compete better and right now there’s no way I can.
‘But I’m gonna keep grinding it out ’cause you never know. That putter gets hot… I don’t care if you got one arm, one leg, that putter gets hot you can play some really good golf. ‘Cause we all hit it good.
John Daly opened up on his battles with bladder cancer that had him ‘peeing and pukin’ blood’
Daly, aged 58, has not played in a PGA Champions Tour event since last October
‘Everybody on the tours hit it great, it’s just the matter of that one chip in, that one 40 yard par putt or something like Tiger did for years. It’s not about an eagle or a birdie, sometimes it’s about a 20 foot bogey putt or a 25, 30, 40 foot par putt. Man you make and you just walk off and you say “Okay I’m gonna go get it now.”‘
Daly was then asked more about when he found out about his cancer diagnosis
‘It was scary,’ the Arkansas native said. ‘I was peeing blood, pukin’ blood… I thought my back was killing me and I didn’t know and I went in[to] Little Rock, got a checkup and everything on my back and then a was it a neurologist? Doctor saw it and said ‘you gotta come back.’
‘I was fixin’ to go to Hooters, get some wings in little rock and he called and said ‘no don’t eat anything I gotta get you back over here.’ And I go ‘Why’ and [he says] ‘Well you have cancer. You have bladder cancer’. What else can happen, you know?
‘As long as it’s me and not my kids, I can deal with it. So I go back, they caught it in time, I’ve been in remission for the last four years, but I gotta get a checkup once a year now thank god and not two. Anyone who’s got bladder cancer, that thing that goes in your pee-pee don’t feel good.
‘Hey, I just deal with it. You just deal with it and you try to work around all these injuries and everything, try and play the best you can. As long as the Champions Tour… they work me when i get exemptions, but I’m blessed to get them and to play that tour and hang out with these guys.’
Daly hasn’t played an event on the PGA Champions Tour since last October. He played at last year’s PGA Championship and The Open Championship – but withdrew after the first round in both tournaments, both times shooting an opening round 82.
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Golf icon John Daly opens up on brutal reality of bladder cancer that had him ‘peeing and puking blood’
