Joker plays out of the rough

Close-up; David Feherty: An Irish golfer whose marriage and game fell apart has proved he is not the retiring kind. Andy Farrell talks to him

EVEN at his lowest moment, David Feherty was ready with a line for the waiting pressmen. By missing the four-round cut at the US tour's qualifying school in November, Feherty lost his playing privileges in America. "I'd shoot myself," he said, "but the way things are going, I'd miss and hit someone I care about."

The remark shows three Feherty traits: self-deprecation, consideration and a talent for the sound-bite. Fehertyisms stand out in a golf reporter's notebook like an orange ball on a snow-covered golf course. He can talk. In 1991, he went to the studios of an Adelaide radio station for a brief interview to be recorded, and ended up acting as DJ for the rest of the day.

When he announced his retirement from playing golf in December at the age of 37 to become a television commentator, all the main American networks made him offers which are still on the table. There is also his career as a course designer with fellow Irishman David Jones - one course in Turkey will stage a European Seniors event this year and two are in progress in northern and south-west Ireland. The turn of the year, however, brought a change of heart and for the first time in three years, he will play full-time in Europe.

Feherty's gift for inspiring anecdotes has been sorely missed: within a brief period in 1992, he was bitten by a snake at Wentworth; was driving his Porsche to the Irish Open when "a wall leapt out in front of him"; went for a jog while staying at the Gleneagles Hotel for the Scottish Open and spent an hour persuading a security guard to let him back in; and painted the baby's bedroom pink before finding out it was a boy.

The Irishman trained as an opera singer but gave it up for golf. He was once quoted as saying: "You definitely have to have a screw loose to play this game for a living for any length of time. Think about it. You whack a white ball around and that's it. All sorts of races claim to have invented golf. I would deny any knowledge of it. I'd say: 'No, it wasn't the Irish. It wasn't our fault'. It's more a form of medieval torture than a game. My ultimate ambition is to be able to retire from the game because it drives me berserk." It did and he almost did.

Feherty being a man of contradictions, he will appreciate the irony of his return to Europe beginning with three events in South Africa, starting with this week's Dimension Data Pro-Am at Sun City. The country gave him his first significant professional win at the ICL International in 1984. He wintered there each year and it is where he met his wife-to-be, Caroline. It was partly because she could not adjust to life in Feherty's home town of Bangor, in Northern Ireland, that they decided to move to Dallas. Feherty hoped to further his career by playing regularly on the US tour and in his first year, in 1994, he earned $178,501 and finished in 100th place on the money list.

But last year the marriage disintegrated and so did Feherty's golf. He earned just $90,274 from 26 events. He injured his elbow in August and had to return to the Qualifying School in an attempt to retain his card. "I have never seen him strike the ball as well as at the Q School," said his Bristol-based manager, Chris Mitchell. "There was just too much going on in his head. He was very down. It was very sad."

"Most days I didn't want to get out of bed, let alone go and play golf," Feherty recalled. "It was a nightmare. There was nothing wrong with my swing. I just didn't want to be on the golf course. I was feeling sorry for myself, but in golf you can only do that for so long."

Perhaps it was having made the final decision to end his playing career that gave him the time and space to think about what he really wanted to do. Play golf. He still has his player's card in Europe, where he won five times between 1986 and 1992, as a leader on the career money list. He will compete in Europe 16 times this year and hopes to receive six invitations to events in America.

He will keep an apartment in Dallas to be close to his two sons, Shey, aged seven, and Rory, three, and while in Europe will stay with Mitchell or his good friend and one-time Ryder Cup partner, Sam Torrance. "I had a lot of letters from people saying 'please come back to Europe where you belong'. Some of the boys have been on to me like Sam, Wayne Riley and Monty, saying, 'what the hell are you up to'.

Riley just laughed. "I said, 'come on, you can play until you are 50'. He has had a rough time and was down in the dumps. But I respect him too much as a great player for him to retire." Mitchell confirmed: "Now the divorce is settled and he is more settled about his future. He is fully fit and playing better than ever. I have never seen him so enthusiastic about golf. He enjoys doing the TV work, and he is good at it, but he will expand that in around five years time."

The news that Feherty had reconsidered delighted Ian Woosnam. "He's too young and too good a player to give up. It'll be nice to have him back. David likes being among his friends. We'll have a few beers and he'll play some good golf." Ronan Rafferty, Feherty's fellow Ulsterman, summed up the mood: "He will be made very welcome. I took his retirement with a pinch of salt. Coming back may be the boost he needs. David will tell you himself that he was no boy wonder. He has worked his way up the hard way, starting as an assistant like Barry Lane. Playing in America was a pinnacle for him."

Feherty turned professional in 1976 and took 10 years to win on the European Tour. In fact, he won twice in 1986, at the Italian and Scottish Opens, and both in playoffs. His best year in the Order of Merit came in 1990, when he was eighth with pounds 353,759, the year he led Ireland to victory in the Alfred Dunhill Cup. A year later he made the Ryder Cup team at Kiawah Island, beating the American Payne Stewart in the singles.

Feherty does not regret trying his luck on the US Tour. "Technically, my game was in good shape. I am a much improved player from the days when I was winning in Europe, and there is no reason why I can't do well this year. I have got to make some money and now I've pulled myself together, there is light at the end of the tunnel, instead of a bloody great train bearing down on me."

Feherty's gift of the gab

On Nick Faldo: The only time he opens his mouth is to change feet.

On losing weight last year: I've lost 150lb if you include my wife.

On the New England Open: It's like the Irish Open, except there are more Irish people in Boston.

On Crooked Stick, where John Daly won the 1991 US PGA: This course is so long it's the first time I've had to take into account the curvature of the earth.

On a John Daly haircut: It looks like he has a divot over each ear.

On Daly at St Andrews: There are five courses out there. He must hit one of them.

On Colin Montgomerie: He's got a face like a warthog who's just been stung by a wasp.

On being bitten by a snake: I considered beating the living daylights out of it but it probably has a wife and snakelets.

On a swing change: Previously I was like a blind man in a darkened room at midnight.

On his swing on a bad day: It was like a privy door on a prawn trawler in the middle of the Atlantic.

On Jack Nicklaus golf courses: They are like hot air dryers in public lavatories. They are a good idea but take too long.