PGA Tour hero John Daly has found a new restaurant in Augusta to accommodate him for the Masters after his beloved Hooters was demolished.
Despite not competing at the major tournament himself since 2006, Daly, 59, continued to make his traditional pilgrimage to Augusta’s local Hooters on Masters week up until it closed its doors for good last year.
The golf icon took up residence at the popular sports bar – which is famous for its scantily-clad waitresses and chicken wings – for close to three decades and made huge returns in the process while flaunting his own line of merchandise.
Yet after it was torn down in 2025, local news station WRDW-TV claims he will now be setting up shop at Top Dawg Tavern – a similar establishment right across the street serving food and craft beer – for this year’s Masters.
Daly, who was a Hooters ambassador after signing an endorsement deal in 2022, revealed that he pocketed $780,000 selling $40 hats, $10 autographed golf balls and $250 boxes of cigars among other treasures on the restaurant’s patio.
‘Eat some good food, smoke, sell some s***,’ he described his annual trip there in a 2025 interview with ESPN.
John Daly has found a new spot in Augusta for Masters week after Hooters was demolished
The chain-smoking golf icon will instead set up shop at Top Dawg Tavern across the street
At the 2023 Open, Daly even turned heads when he rocked up to Royal Liverpool in Hooters print pants.
The two-time major winner suffered a nightmare during a recent PGA Tour Champions event, after taking 19 strokes to finish a par-5 12th hole in South Dakota.
Hole 12 at the Sanford International at Minnehaha Country Club in Sioux Falls features a long creek running along the left side of the fairway, with players forced to hit over the water to reach the green.
After hitting his tee shot into the rough, Daly hit not one, not two, not three – but seven shots in a row out-of-bounds.
That included not only shots hit into the water, but also shots hit into the wooded area to the left of the hole.
Once he finally managed to get his ball on the green, Daly sank his first putt to cap off a wild 19-stroke up-and-down.
The tetradeca-bogey was believed to be the highest single-hole score of Daly’s playing career, according to NBC Sports.
Daly had spent close to three decades taking up residence at the popular restaurant chain
He became an ambassador for Hooters, famous for its scantily-clad waitresses, back in 2022
The 59-year-old even went as far as to wear the restaurant on his print pants at the 2023 Open
Daly, a two-time major winner in his career, is one of the most iconic figures in golf history
Last year Daly sparked huge concerns for his wellbeing when he shared a photo of himself in a hospital bed in January.
Alongside the snap, he revealed to his 800k followers that he had just undergone surgery due to an issue with his hand, before vowing to ‘be back playing in no time.’
Months on from that emergency op he then made his first PGA Tour appearance of the year at the Hoag Classic in Newport Beach, California.
When asked how bad his hand injury was, the cult hero explained: ‘The tendons were all wrapped around each other. [The doctor] doesn’t understand how I played last year.
‘But he put it back, attached it to the forefinger or something.
’16 surgeries in four years, I’ve lost count pretty much.’
