While most of the marquee names on thePGA Tourare teeing it up at the Arnold Palmer Invitational this week, there is also an opposite-field event taking place in Puerto Rico with the son of one of the legends of the game making his debut on Tour.
John Daly II, a senior at Arkansas and the son of two-time major winnerJohn Daly, received a sponsor's exemption to tee it up in 120-man event and made the most of the opportunity on day one.
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Daly carded a 2-under round of 70 on Thursday, which will likely keep him inside the Top 25 on the leaderboard heading into Friday's second round. After a relatively uneventful opening nine holes, Daly made three birdies and a pair of bogeys on the back nine, and seemed please with how he hung in there in his debut round on Tour.
"Got off to a good start, made a nice birdie on 1. Solid up-and-down on 2, made about a 20-footer for par, which is nice, settled me in," Daly explained. "And then just hit some good shots. Feel like I left a few out there, but I made it up with just a couple good saves and nice chip-in on 16."
Daly only hit two greens in regulation, which puts his 2-under score in an even greater perspective.
Daly is currently ranked 54th in the World Amateur Golf Ranking after an impressive 2025 campaign with a victory at The Blessings Collegiate Invitational and the Southern Amateur Championship. He also finished fifth in the stroke play portion of the 2025 U.S. Amateur Championship before being knocked out in the Round of 32.
Given that he was among the first groups to tee off on Thursday in Puerto Rico, Daly had much of the day to either hit some balls and get things fine-tuned for Friday or relax a bit. He chose the latter.
"I would say I'd go hit balls, but I'm a little tired, so I'm just probably going to go to the beach and probably do absolutely nothing for the rest of the day," Daly explained.
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