Boo’s Big Return

Boo will makes his return to the tour the second week of June at the St. Jude Classic in Memphis.

Update on Boo’s Shoulder

Boo will see Dr. Andrews at the Andrews Institute in Gulf Breeze, FL on Friday. Boo’s next scheduled tournament is The Memorial.

Boo’s in a world of his own

By Ron Green Jr.
rgreenjr@charlotteobserver.com

Mac Barnhardt, who has spent nearly two decades in the sports management business, knew Boo Weekley had transcended golf when they were walking together and fans started shouting, “Boo, Boo, Boo!”

There wasn’t a golf course in sight.

They were in the garage at Lowe’s Motor Speedway last year and there were moments when it seemed as if Dale Earnhardt Jr. (Weekley’s favorite driver, by the way) was walking by, not a professional golfer who rode an imaginary pony off the first tee on Sunday of the Ryder Cup matches last fall.

“The closest thing I can remember to this is when John Daly won the PGA Championship (in 1991),” Barnhardt, Weekley’s business manager, said. “This has gone to rock-star status.”

If there is a general mold into which most professional golfers can be fit – thin, reserved and understated – Weekley, 35, lives outside the mold.

A native of the Florida panhandle with thinning hair and a gently rounded belly, Weekley looks more like the people watching him from outside the gallery ropes than like his contemporaries.

He possesses a charm as genuine as a country morning. He is a collection of stories and observations, all shared with a southern drawl and a twinkle in his eye.

“Every time he says something, it’s just a little bit different than everybody else, so you sit there and try to soak it in, because he’s like that 24-7,” said Anthony Kim, one of Weekley’s many friends on tour.

“He’s dancing in the locker room and there’s no music. He’s fun to be around.”

Sitting in the Quail Hollow locker room this week, sipping a beer after a day of practice, Weekley leaned back against one of the tall wooden lockers and reflected on all that has happened in his life since he won his first PGA Tour event in 2007 at the Verizon Heritage on Hilton Head Island, S.C.

He has endorsement deals with Bass Pro Shops and MasterCard, in addition to golf equipment deals. Weekley also has his own line of clothing, much of it featuring camouflage. There are camo caps with ‘Boo’ written on the front and golf shirts with camo trim.

“I ain’t going to say everything I touch turns to gold or camouflage. The people that really know me know I’ve got to work hard to keep what I’ve got. Nothing comes easy to me. It never has in life. I’ve had to work at it,” Weekley said

“I’m from a working-class family and I’ve went out and worked myself. I know what it’s like to have a 9-to-5 job. I know what it’s like to get up in the morning and just go … whether I hated it or loved it, I just had to do it. It was part of my life.

“Now in golf, I’ve been fortunate enough to have reached a level that I can take two days off and not play golf, just enjoy what I’m doing.”

It’s a far cry from his days working in a chemical plant being lowered into drums to scrub them out.

Weekley would like to play better – and perhaps a little less – golf than he has recently. This is his 11th tournament week in the past 12, a stretch like those he played when he was chasing the game on mini-tours around Florida.

He has had consecutive top-15 finishes in his past two starts, but hasn’t had the breakout week this season. Even at Hilton Head, where he was two-time defending champion, he couldn’t summon his game when he needed it.

Still, fans and players gravitate to Weekley. When he approached the final green at Hilton Head two weeks ago, his two-year reign as champion ending, Weekley acknowledged the cheers by tipping his cap and bowing to the crowd.

He has often said his golf career is a means to an end. When he reaches a certain financial number, Weekley said he will leave the tour and spend his days fishing, hunting and hanging out at home in tiny Jay, Fla.

It won’t happen soon.

“Back at the house, people are losing golf courses,” Weekley said. “My friends are losing their jobs at the plant where I used to work. It’s crazy. … That number has gone away right now.”

The dream, though, is alive and well.

When the subject turns to hunting, Weekley’s posture changes. He goes from leaning on a locker to sitting forward on a bench, excited by the subject.

“I’m like a little kid at Christmas,” he said. “When the opening day of gun season comes or bow season comes in, I can’t sleep. I’ll go to bed and have all my hunting stuff laid out …”

Weekley compares his feelings to those of a school kid who waits all week for Saturday to play golf all day.

And here’s where his world view come into focus.

“When you get there, it’s you and the wilderness,” Weekley said. “You ain’t going to hear a car honking, you ain’t going to hear nothing. You just sit against a tree and close your eyes and listen to what’s really there.

“You’ll hear a bird chirping. Well, what kind of bird is that? It’s a mockingbird.

“Then all of a sudden you hear another sound. That’s a crow. All of a sudden you look up and (there’s) a weird bird sound right there. You look over there and it’s a hummingbird at some honeysuckle.

“Then you hear a squirrel bouncing through the woods …”

That’s Boo’s world.

Boo Withdraws From TPC

Boo Weekley tees off on the sixth hole during the final round of The Players Championship on Sunday. Weekley withdrew with a shoulder injury. (J Pat Carter/Associated Press)

Friday at the TPC

Boo had a great round on Friday at the TPC. He shot -5 for the day, and is -4 for the tournament. Congratulations on a great round Boo!

Nationwide Tour Reunion Cements Old Friendships

May. 5, 2009
By Ceri Mobley, PGATOUR.COM Associate Site Producer

PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. — The biggest difference between the PGA TOUR and the Nationwide Tour isn’t the courses. It isn’t the purses. It’s not even the faces. It’s the relationships. And keeping those relationships intact was the first order of business at Monday night’s Nationwide Tour reunion in celebration of its 20th year.

With Tour President Bill Calfee on the grill and the big blue Tour truck looming large in the parking lot behind the clubhouse at TPC Sawgrass, Nationwide Tour alums from the 1980s to 2008 gathered to catch up with old friends during the PGA TOUR’s biggest week of the year. And that’s the spirit of this Tour — even with THE PLAYERS Championship taking the main stage this week, these guys found time to be a part of the festivities.

“Guys don’t show up to these things very often,” said Charley Hoffman, a PGA TOUR winner and Nationwide Tour member from 2000-2005. “Especially on a Monday, so seeing all these guys (players) here shows how much these guys (Nationwide Tour staff) mean to us and how much the Nationwide Tour meant to us.”

Hoffman wasn’t the only Tour alum to utter that sentiment over burgers, brats and beer Monday night. “They turned me around as a person, these guys in this truck here,” said Boo Weekley. “They believe in all of us. They helped me start believing in who I was and what I wanted to do.”

With two PGA TOUR victories in as many seasons under Boo’s belt as well as a crucial role in the U.S. Ryder Cup team’s 2008 success, it seems the Nationwide Tour guys were spot on. And Boo doesn’t want them to forget it. “I still think about them as much as they think about me,” he said.

Take a walk through “the truck” — as all the players fondly call it — and you’ll see that the alums are still very much on the minds of the Nationwide Tour roadies. Signed flags from TOUR victories of proven stars like Nick Watney, Aaron Baddeley, Zach Johnson, Daniel Chopra, Brandt Snedeker and more splash the walls with color and character — the same character that being a part of this Tour instills in players.

Flags aren’t the only reminder of players who have moved on to greener pastures, though. A plasma TV mounted on the wall bears the autograph of the guy who bought it for the team — Johnson Wagner. “We bet him that if he won in Omaha, he’d buy us a TV,” said Patrick Nichol, operations coordinator for the Nationwide Tour.

Wagner did, of course, win the Cox Classic in 2006, and true to his promise, he picked up the TV at the Tour’s next stop. When he won on the PGA TOUR in 2008 at the Shell Houston Open — earning the final spot in that year’s Masters — he sent the truck an autographed flag with the message “I’m glad to see you watching me on my TV” written on it.

Ask anyone on this Tour for a 100 tales just like that, and they’ll have them ready for you. “Most of those guys have stories about me,” said Jerry Kelly, who just earned his third PGA TOUR title two weeks ago at the Zurich Classic.

“I spent three years on that Tour, and it was absolutely instrumental. I always think if I had made it on TOUR when I was missing by a shot (to reach q-school finals) any of those years, I wouldn’t have the longevity on TOUR that I do now.”

And that’s why proven champions like Kelly don’t want to forget their Nationwide Tour roots. This Tour is the proving ground of the PGA TOUR, but it’s also a family that, no matter how long you’re away from it, will always welcome you back.

“I love the Nationwide Tour,” Calfee said. “It’s a different atmosphere. It’s closer, less pressure, but there are a lot of good feelings. The guys want to come back and have such good memories of what the Tour has done for them and their careers.”

So with smoke coming off the grill and coozies in hand, the patchwork of champions past and present went to work on creating some new memories around the old truck.

TOUR vet Woody Austin congratulated Kelly on his latest win with a kick in the behind. Ryan Palmer and John Rollins brought their kids out to play. And as the evening wound down — several hours after it began — Stewart Cink, Tim Herron, Weekley and Wagner were all still there, enjoying the company, the Calfee cookout and the truck.

“I don’t even know where the trucks are for the regular TOUR,” Rollins said.

Perhaps that’s the difference.

This Week

Boo finished at Quail Hollow -7 which tied him for eleventh place at the tournament. This week Boo heads to Ponte Verde Beach to play in The Players Championship.

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