ST. ANDREWS, ScotlandOn the far end of the table were two unopened bottles of Highland Spring water, one sparkling, one without the fizz. They were there just in case John Daly, sitting a long reach away, wanted to quench his thirst Monday during the British Open champion’s traditional Monday morning news conference at the Old Course Hotel.

By Gus Bode

Daly isn’t drinking much of anything these days aside from Diet Coke by the case, which he uses to wash down the M&Ms or anything else with the sweet chocolate taste he now craves as much as he did beer and booze before he checked into alcohol rehabilitation almost three years ago. Sunday night he said he celebrated winning the 124th Open championship with two strip steaks and a huge bowl of chocolate ice cream after devouring Italian Costantino Rocca in a four-hole playoff on the windy Old Course at St. Andrews.

The night after was far different at his first major victory, that stunning triumph as an unknown ninth alternate in the field at the 1991 PGA Championship at Crooked Stick near Indianapolis. About the only thing Daly remembers about that summer evening was packing a half-dozen people into a newly hired chauffeured limousine and ordering drive-through from the sunroof at McDonalds for everyone, then washing it down later with a few beers.

He never said how many a

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