John Daly has always been true to himself. The cigarettes, the Diet Coke, and his grip-it-and-rip-it approach made him one of golf’s most unlikely icons. None of it was an act; it was just who he is. On April 8, while talking with Jason and Travis Kelce on the New Heights podcast, Daly said something that stood out from his usual jokes.
“If I knew I was gonna live to be this f***ing old, I’d have taken worse care of myself.”
Travis Kelce replied, “Cheers to that, brother,” and everyone laughed. Still, humor often covers up the truth, but it doesn’t make it go away. Daly’s words showed the reality of someone who has seen his diet choices catch up with him, and now he’s feeling the impact on his game.
Daly’s routine, as he described in the same segment, explains where his comment came from. He smokes four or five cigarettes before a round, drinks several Diet Cokes, and usually skips the putting green and the driving range.
“I just smoke cigarettes and drink Diet Coke. I don’t even look at a putting green or practice.”
His body, he added, simply cannot hold up to extended sessions anymore. “12 surgeries, bladder cancer in the last eight years,” he said — meaning the full verified count of 16 procedures over four years sits just beneath the surface of that line. He gets up, hits 20 putts, sits down, has a cigarette. Then does it again. What was once a lifestyle choice has become a physical ceiling.
The habit did not arrive overnight, and Daly has never hidden it. During a documented practice round at the 2008 Wyndham Championship, a journalist tracking everything he consumed over 18 holes recorded 21 cigarettes, 12 Diet Cokes, six packs of Peanut M&Ms, and zero ounces of water. At the height of his consumption, he estimated smoking around 18,000 cigarettes a year. When bladder cancer arrived in September 2020, his response was to try to cut back.
“I’m cutting way, way back on the Diet Coke and counting minutes before I can have a cigarette. I’m trying to quit smoking,” he said at the time.
By the 2024 PGA Championship at Valhalla, a volunteer with his group reported he had gone through two full packs during his first round. The intention to quit never quite became the reality.
The physical consequences have been just as consistent. Bladder cancer diagnosed in September 2020 carried an 85 percent recurrence risk; four years of remission have followed, but the cascade of procedures never stopped. Both knees replaced, chronic osteoarthritis in his hand requiring emergency surgery in January 2025, keeping him off the Champions Tour until returning to competitive play at the Hoag Classic in March.
That competitive picture is the story the podcast clip was actually telling. The joke was the surface. Underneath it was a man accounting for the gap between the golfer he was and the one his body allows him to be now.
John Daly and the last of a dying archetype in sports
Golf has not seen another player like John Daly, and the New Heights clip makes it clear why. American sports once allowed for figures like Mickey Mantle and Babe Ruth, whose off-field habits were as well-known as their achievements. Both paid the price for their lifestyles, with Mantle dying at 63 and Ruth at 53.
Their reputations were shaped as much by their actions off the field as by their results. In 1991, professional golf saw Daly join this group when he entered the PGA Championship as the ninth alternate, arrived late, and won by three shots without a practice round.
Today, professional golf is defined by technology, data, and strict routines. Players now rely on launch monitors, biomechanics, and recovery protocols. Daly has always taken a different approach. His two majors, five PGA Tour wins, and nearly $13 million in earnings came from instinct and a straightforward style that is now rare. The New Heights clip simply highlighted this difference, as Daly put it.
He has said he still wants to compete, still wants to grind it out, because the putter can get hot at any time. The vines are quiet on whether this season has another chapter in it. What the April 8 podcast put on record is that the cost of the way he has lived is no longer entirely hidden behind the jokes.
