Chain-smoking John Daly remains golf's true rockstar – and every mother's worst nightmare

Oh, to be Cameron Tringale. The world No49, a slender and elegant 34-year-old American probably flies under the radar to most bar true golf fans. But on Friday he had a front row seat to a rare meeting of golfing minds as the third member of a group that included John Daly, the Wild Thing, and Bryson DeChambeau, the physics graduate who rebuilt his body to exert more power on the ball.

Tringale had the best round of the trio, shooting a 71, but it was 56-year-old Daly who stole show, even from DeChambeau – a LIV rebel who was booed at last year’s Open in Royal St George’s for his non-traditional approach to big hitting before winning over the fans with his rugby player’s build and scientific approach.

Daly, with his paunch spilling out over his lurid orange baggy trousers, made quite the entrance, clattering over the players’ bridge that leads to the practice putting green. He was followed by his son and caddie John II, himself a promising golfer.

Daly senior’s trousers were emblazoned with the Hooters logo, as was Junior’s baseball cap. “Mummy, what is Hooters?” asked one little girl nearby.

Mummy did not reply. Hooters is the infamous American restaurant chain known for its scantily clad waitresses. But this is Daly, on the surface of it the anti-establishment outsider, in his element; everyone was in thrall, including a patrician-looking Scottish gentleman with a badge identifying him as a previous captain of St Andrews.

Hard as you try, you cannot miss Daly, who won the Open here on the Old Course in 1995, who smoked a cigarette on his way to the tee box and greeted  DeChambeau with that most American of greetings: the fist bump.

DeChambeau, at half Daly’s age, may not remember that win in 1995 but the way Daly