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GREENSBORO — It's a new John Daly this year at the Wyndham Championship. No, really.

Daly has dropped more than 80 pounds since undergoing Lap-Band surgery in February, and he supplemented that procedure with a vision-correction operation. His swing coach said the gregarious golfer's withdrawal from a tournament last month resulted from not eating.

And, just for kicks, Daly shot a 4-under-par 66 in Thursday's opening round of the Wyndham.

"It was a long day," Daly said of a round that included a four-hour weather delay, "but I hit the ball pretty good and my back held up."

You have heard this story -- or at least a version of it -- before. There was the chastened, direct-from-detox Daly who showed up at the Greater Greensboro Chrysler Classic earlier this decade proclaiming the virtues of early risin' and clean livin' and other things that wouldn't fit in a country music lyrics sheet.

That was followed by the various incarnations of the daily (and nightly) Daly, who, if you recall, spent a night in the Forsyth County Jail 10 months ago after authorities said he was too intoxicated to get back on a tour bus that had stopped for dinner at a Hooters restaurant in Winston-Salem.

After threatening to hit 300 -- and not in a baseball sense -- Daly decided to have the Lap-Band surgery, in which silicone is placed around the top of the stomach to reduce food intake.

Three years after the procedure, the average patient has lost 36 percent of his or her pre-operative weight.

Not that it has been easy in this case. Far from it. The aftercare plan for weight-reduction surgery includes consumption cutbacks, and Daly has even been intense about that. Last month, he said he was down to 600 calories of food a day -- about a third of the recommended amount for an adult.

Admit it: You envisioned Daly as first violinist with the London Philharmonic before you dreamed he'd adopt the dietary habits of a supermodel.

When Daly pulled out of last week's PGA Championship, he cited back pain that stemmed from his new frame.

"We found out the problem with the back: It was like two or three really bad spasms," he said. "It has been brutal, but you know, at least we found out the problem and we know how to stretch it."

Daly came to Greensboro having shot 76 or worse in four of his previous five rounds, but he bogeyed only one hole and hit 15 of 18 greens in regulation Thursday.

He stood at 4-under when the thunder, lightning and rain hit Sedgefield Country Club, and the delay seemed on its face like the perfect way to wreck his day. Instead, he parred his four remaining holes.

"The rain delay actually helped," he said. "I went in and saw (a physiotherapist) and got it stretched out again."

The other difference is in eyesight, in which the improvement is just now becoming apparent. He underwent surgery this month and said he has a much better idea of how to line up putts than he did before the procedure.

"I don't know what the guy called it," Daly said, referring to his doctor. "He cut the astigmatism from a 168 to a 0.5."

While a reduction in Daly's score won't be quite that dramatic, shaving a few strokes here and there would help a career imperiled by various off-course incidents.

"It's nice to get a decent round in," he said.