Here's a shocking bulletin from Loch Lomond: John Daly's dress sense threatened to upstage his golf on Thursday. He was eye-poppingly painful to behold - or at least, his trousers were. Why is it that you need to be a fashion writer and not a sports reporter when covering Daly these days?

His “pants” as they call them in the United States - in Scotland we prefer “breeks” - were just about indescribable: a bonfire of colour, at least six different shades of polka-dot, from his rear to his ankles. You could be forgiven for thinking Daly had forgotten to change out of his pyjamas when he rose in the morning. “Christ, I was aghast when I saw him!” rasped a Scottish marshall on the 9th tee after seeing the insouciant Daly lumbering towards him.

Strangely for a sometimes disapproving, Presbyterian nation, the Scots really took to this sight at the Barclays Scottish Open. They tend not to like exhibitionism in these parts, and certainly not on a golf course, from which this nation gave this game to the world, along with a code of conduct. And that code clearly states that pyjama-trousers are out.

“I'm now up to around 28 different styles of these,” Daly babbled after his round, even quoting the name of his designer, which confirmed again that he seems keen to establish an outrageous fashion-house in his own name. It's one thing for him to wear such garbs, but quite another to think of the punters buying them.

A psychologist might have a field day with all this. Given the 43-year-old Daly's history of afflictions and self-destruction - alcoholism, eating-disorders, relationship rumpuses and the rest - is this sartorial riot some form of distraction or camouflage for everything else? The subliminal message from Daly seems to be: “Never mind my case-history, look at my fiery fashion.” If so, it seems a pity because, more than anything, Daly remains a supremely gifted golfer, which is what this is supposed to be all about.

Anyone who has watched Daly over the years knows that the common perception of him as merely a brute of thrilling but awesome strength is a calumny. Part of the delight in watching him at such close quarters as yesterday is in seeing his lovely, velvety touches around the greens. On his way to his two-under 69, which kept him in contention, Daly often exhibited Bobby Jones's old maxim, whenever around the greens, about “never holding the club any heavier or tighter than when shaking a lady's hand". Daly still has that delicious, exquisite touch.

Of course, his antics on the tee will never cease to amaze. Yet even this well-known routine remains refreshing for its instinctive, slightly raw action. So many touring pros these days have mechanical swings - and some of them truly resemble robots when addressing the ball - and we saw plenty of that at Loch Lomond yesterday.

But not from Daly. In approaching each shot he is no-nonsense personified: three wiggles of the club, a further strange wiggle of his right thumb, and then... woosh! At this, around the tee, the usual exclamations and imprecations are audible from the gallery, even after all these years.

Alas, he put his back out on the 13th, which will now hinder his chances of victory over the next three days.

“I can't get through the ball right now,” Daly said after his round. “It's a sprained rib cage. My stroke's great, but unfortunately after I hit a beautiful shot on 13 my back went out. I'm just glad I've finished my round.”

Daly is no longer a “freak show”, as someone once cruelly put it. Or maybe we have to use a more temporary language for this volatile character - at the moment, at any rate, he isn't. Instead, he is quite a draw on the golf course, for all his silly attire.