Gonzo: John Daly: While supplies last

AUGUSTA, Ga. - Washington Road is the main strip outside Augusta National Golf Club. It's littered with chain restaurants, fast-food drive-throughs, gas stations, and, at this time of year, broken dreams.

During the Masters, the street morphs into a sad shantytown where people who should have become carnies go to hawk cheap wares: cigars and cigarettes, bottled water and soda, golf paintings and photos of Tiger Woods. Everything here gets covered in thick Mountain Dew-colored pollen - including the merchants and their desperation.

Not far from Augusta's main gate, a scruffy-looking man held a crudely made sign that read "Pull a Tiger lately? Smooth it over with Fine Jewelry." He was standing next to a girl with cartoonish cleavage who couldn't have been older than 21. She was wearing orange and white argyle socks and handing out stickers that read "I love Hooters" - as in the eatery. Oddly, they said their promotions were unrelated.

Almost anything is for sale on Washington Road - including John Daly, now many years removed from his glory days as a PGA and British Open champion and about 120 pounds lighter than he was before he had a rubber tube surgically fitted around the top of his once-bloated belly to lose weight.

On Tuesday, Daly stood outside his monstrous RV with girlfriend Anna Cladakis (as seen on the TV show Being John Daly!). The mobile home was parked in the Windsor Jewelers lot, just across the street from the Augusta players' entrance and a few yards down from the Army recruiters and their made-in-America camouflage Hummer. A row of long folding tables was set up end-to-end in front of the golfer and topped with all sorts of officially licensed Daly items, ranging from hats to golf balls to floor mats - all of which were branded with his lion head logo or initials or both.

Welcome to Daly's itinerant flea market, making stops at a golf tournament near you sometime soon. While the oppressive Georgia sun beat down and golf fans walked past with Styrofoam to-go cups and Koozies packed with sweaty Miller Lite cans, Daly posed for pictures and handed out handshakes.

"I've been here since 8 a.m.," Daly said. "I'll be here all day."

He was wearing a white T-shirt with "Arkansas" across the chest in black letters, gaudy black-and-white animal print shorts courtesy of one of his sponsors, Loud Mouth Golf, and well-worn black sandals. A faded black hat with a lion head logo sat atop his head, and dark sunglasses covered his eyes.

After taking a long pull from the cigarette in his right hand that had nearly burned down to the nub, Daly grabbed a crumpled $10 bill from a patron and stuffed it into his makeshift cash register - a small metal container no bigger than a shoe box with a lock on the lid.

Daly, as you've probably figured, needs money. He has four ex-wives and, as he estimated in one of his books, gambled away $50 million to $60 million over the years. That's supposedly the old John Daly - the profane-but-fun-loving lout who used to brag about banging back a fifth of Jack Daniel's every day for a year, once got booted off a British Airways flight for being drunk and disorderly, and eventually ended up in various alcohol rehab facilities.

This, he claims, is the new John Daly. He says he's dried out and he's ready to rededicate himself to the game. That might take some time; he's currently 431st in the world golf rankings.

Tuesday, he focused on a different task, and pushed plastic wristbands inscribed with his trademark "Grip it and Rip It" motto (one for $3.50, 10 at the bulk-rate price of $20) to the fans who made him a household name and remembered a time when he was a great golfer rather than a cautionary tale. For the ladies, Daly had "I love JD" tank tops ($30); for the kids, there were fuzzy stuffed animals ($10). And for the nicotine lover in the crowd, he offered Zippo lighters ($30) complete with his signature.

Everything must go - including pride - down at Johnny D's Wacky Winnebago and Mobile Golf Emporium.

When an older gentleman with a white beard who looked a little like Mark Twain asked how much for a copy of John Daly: My Life In and Out of the Rough, Daly told him it was $20.

"How much to have it autographed?" the man inquired.

Daly stood there staring at him, perhaps annoyed, perhaps not fully understanding the question. His girlfriend quickly came to the rescue and said Daly would sign the tome for free.

"Really?" the man said, stunned.

"Really," she replied.

Next door at the Circle K convenience store and gas station, the proprietors sold parking to motorists for the same price as an autographed Daly book: $20. Hard to figure which was the better bargain.