THOUSAND OAKS, Calif. (AP) -- John Daly has finally come to a startling conclusion: He thinks it's time for him to get serious about his game.
Daly, a two-time major champion who lost his PGA TOUR card last year and had to rely on sponsor exemptions, said last week that he would start working with swing coach Butch Harmon.
"Butch will push you. I never had anybody push me to do things," Daly said last week. "I need to be pushed hard. It's something that maybe should have been done a long time ago, but I was too stubborn. You get a little older and your eyes don't see things and you don't feel the same as you would normally."
Harmon is most famous for working with Tiger Woods and Greg Norman when they became No. 1 in the world, and his latest challenge is trying to get Phil Mickelson to No. 1. But getting Daly to take his game seriously might be the real test.
"Butch is excited about it," Couples said. "That's a good thing, because ... there are a few people he (Harmon) has turned down because he's so busy."
FATHER AND SON: Greg Norman is making a rare and perhaps final visit to the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am for one reason: The Shark will be playing with son Gregory.
"He asked me if we could play in the AT&T, and I didn't know if I could get either one of us in, to tell you the truth," Norman said. "As it worked out, we were lucky enough to get in. To get out there and play those courses in a tournament with that history is going to be good for him as well."
It will be the second straight year a Hall of Fame player competed at the AT&T with his son. Tom Watson played last year with his youngest son, Michael, and they finished second in the pro-am behind Pebble winner Phil Mickelson and amateur partner Harry You.
Norman and his son have played in the Del Webb Father-Son Challenge the last two years.
"It's a little bit different because it's a PGA TOUR event, and there are going to be a lot of people out there," Norman said. "It's going to be a totally different atmosphere. So it's good for him to experience all that if he wants to go and qualify for events that he'd like to play in next year."
PLAYING IT SAFE: Jim Furyk had planned to play one time over the final two months of the year, but he didn't expect it to be the Target World Challenge.
Furyk is the two-time defending champion at the Nedbank Challenge in South Africa, one of his favorite events. But an itinerary that took him from South Korea to Bermuda in October caused him to reconsider. Furyk had some neck and back issues at the PGA Championship, and they flared up during the long flights.
"I knew the flight over there was going to bother me," he said. "I called and let them know that I wasn't feeling up to it. I want to make sure I'm in shape for Jan. 1. It was tough. But I've been good to them, and they've been good to me."
DIVOTS: Woody Austin knew he had reached the big time when he played in his first silly-season event, winning the Merrill Lynch Shootout with Mark Calcavecchia. "If Greg (Norman) told me all I had to do was dive in the water to get in, I would have done it a long time ago," Austin said. ... U.S. Amateur and U.S. Amateur Public Links champion Colt Knost has won the Mark H. McCormack Medal as the top player in the world amateur rankings. Knost turned pro earlier this year, and missed his PGA TOUR and Nationwide cards at Q-School.
STAT OF THE WEEK: Tiger Woods has won 16 times worldwide the last two years, the same number as the next five players below him in the world ranking -- Phil Mickelson (6), Jim Furyk (4), Steve Stricker (1), Ernie Els (3) and Justin Rose (2).
FINAL WORD: "There's obviously never a bad time to win a golf tournament, but I guess now would probably be a better time than most." -- Ernie Els, playing the South African Open this week after blowing the Dunhill Championship with a triple bogey on the last hole.
Copyright 2007 Associated Press. All rights reserved.
