By Thomas Bonk
Photo By Ross Kinnaird/Getty Images
July 17, 2009

TURNBERRY, Scotland — It was a memorable collision of cultures when Boo Weekley, born in Milton, Fla., and schooled at Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College, arrived in Carnoustie in 2007 on his first trip to Scotland and his first British Open Championship.

Boo and Scotland? The contrasts went on and on. Camo and kilts. Harmonica and bagpipes. Mullet and haddock.

When Weekley is at home, he is on a first-name basis with duck blinds and bass boats, but he wasn’t at all certain what to make of this Scotland place. Especially the food. Of course, he wouldn’t be the first to have problems with the local cuisine, just probably the most colorful.

While at Carnoustie, Weekley earned some sort of notoriety for his quote lamenting the limits he had discovered in the foods of Scotland: “Ain’t got no fried chicken, ain’t got no sweet tea.”

But now, at 35, Boo has mellowed. In fact, when he opened up about Scotland in a free-spirited interview here at the British Open at Turnberry, Boo offered not so much of a peep in finding fault. Or pretty close, anyway.

Q: Have you found a favorite Scottish food yet?
Boo: (Chuckles) Their bacon. Their muffins. Their bacon, it’s more like little ham to us. It ain’t really bacon, but I mean it’s pretty good.”

Q: What is haggis?
Boo: “I ain’t got a clue, but I tried it. I didn’t like it, neither.”

Q: So you have found some things you like. Have you had any fish you like?
Boo: “I’ve eaten a few fish. The fish and chips are all right. It’s just a little bit different batter than we use at the house. I’ve had some sole. I was looking for the guy around here … at Carnoustie, they had a guy that smoked fish. It was out of a barrel. He was smoking ‘em right out by the merchandise tent that was awesome. That’s what I ate the whole time when I was over there. I’d go get that, breakfast, lunch and dinner. I ain’t seen him over here.”

Q: Do people here think you have an accent?
Boo: “Oh, yeah, they know I do. They don’t think I’m from Florida, they think I’m from Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama.”

Q: Do you think the Scots have an accent?
Boo: “It’s always different, you know, from when we’re at the house.”

Q: What do you do here in Scotland?
Boo: “No sir, not a lot. But my wife (Karen) and me, we walked the whole golf course the other day and it was beautiful.”

Q: So it sounds like you’re liking Scotland?
Boo: “Oh, yeah, Scotland’s a pretty place. I mean, as long as it ain’t raining.”

Q: What would it take for you to wear a kilt?
Boo: “Probably nothing. I’d wear it. If I had to wear it, I’d wear it, but I ain’t got to. Long as I don’t have to, I ain’t gonna wear it.”

The interview ended and Boo walked off, probably looking for the guy with the smoked fish.

D.C. Reeves

It looks like Boo Weekley’s injured shoulder is working well in Scotland.
Weekley, a Milton High graduate, shot a 3-under 67 in the first round that put him in a tie for 9th as the first round of the British Open concluded today.
Five-time British Open champion Tom Watson, 59, calling the course “defenseless” with little wind, created the story of the day with a 5-under 65 and is one shot behind veteran European player Miguel Angel Jimenez of Spain entering Friday’s second round.

Watson, who outdueled Jack Nicklaus in 1977 to win at Turnberry, would have been the oldest first-roun leader in the event’s history.

Struggling with a torn labrum that forced him to withdraw during the final round of the Players Championship in May, Weekley has slowly worked back to form. He has made three straight cuts and finished tied for 14th at the Traveler’s Championship on June 28.

Boo wrapped up day one two strokes off the lead.  Stay tuned for more updates as Boo makes a run for the British Open.

Greg Tinsley |  July 01, 2009

Perhaps outdoorsman and professional golfer Boo Weekley best personifies the fact that overnight sensations are generally the handiwork of 15 to 20 years of rock-bustin’ effort. Boo, you see, had played a lot of golf before he emerged as something of a superstar.
Now that he is officially world-class certified at the most wickedly frustrating form of stick-and-ball torture ever devised, a pair PGA tournament wins and a folk-legend performance at the 2008 Ryder Cup in his quiver, even the near neophytes can recognize his talent. Today, most everyone understands that you have to be one of the purest strikers in the world to do the things Boo has done with golfing clubs, which is exactly how several brand-name golfers described Boo’s swing in the years long before his euphorically shocking Happy Gilmore shtick at last season’s Ryder.

Following the 2008 pro-golf season and hunting season and recent sessions with the world’s top orthopedic surgeon, James Andrews, M.D., The Pride of Milton, Florida is fully up and running in 2009, rediscovering his form and positioning his game to win, place or show again on tour. To read even one of Boo’s published interviews over the past few years is to come away with the feeling that the big hitter views his golf career as meteoric. He’s fond of saying that as soon as he’s socked away enough money to comfortably hunt and fish with friends and family he’s done with pro golf. Well, if he follows his successes in 2008 with couple more good years then Boo may soon be photographed only in bass boats wearing cargo shorts and hunt-themed casual shirts and in deer stands.<

Multi-Disciplines: The Boo Collection Sets Hunters Free

Speaking of casual wear several years ago I picked off a pair short-sleeve golf shirts in Mossy Oak Break Up. One was subsequently lost, given away or borrowed, but the other went on to become my absolute favorite attire. I now manage the wear cycle of that piece to make it available for special events, like the Thursday before every three-day weekend. Those particular shirts were made by Mossy Oak Apparel of moderately heavy cotton. Near as I can figure, the style was discontinued four to seven years ago and no clothier ever replaced the model with another offering like it in camo. So, apparently, for what felt like a decade, the very modern world we live in was completely without what I would contend was the ultimate shirt for dove hunting, trout fishing, 3-D shooting and early season big-game bowhunting; or for the office on the Thursday before every three-day weekend.

(And ain’t that just craziern’ heck!?)

Enter, thankfully, the new Boo Series of active outdoor wear, which is built around an extremely handsome Firethorn Tour-brand shirt featuring Mossy Oak Duck Blind with black collar and side inserts. The antibacterial material is 100-percent micro polyester. There are other color schemes of essentially the same shirt, which interest me greatly: Boo’s website has it in Duck Blind with blaze orange inserts. Nevertheless, it is the Duck Blind model with black inserts that I will own before close of business today. And I will try to avoid dripping BBQ sauce all over it during the upcoming Fourth of July festivities.

Take it from me: You better get some now to avoid all possibility of a discontinued catastrophe. Click: http://store.mossyoak.com/SearchResult.aspx?CategoryID=89

Camo is Crucial at Boo’s July 31-August 2, 2009 Golf Scramble

When you become a legitimate superstar at something people will likely want to see you perform and/or hang out with you. If you’re a celeb of Boo’s homegrown grace and scope, you often use some of your popularity, and the money that your fans will pay to see you or hang out with you, to raise cash for worthwhile charities.

Boo’s primary philanthropic event of 2009 Boo’s Camp Compass Scramble occurs July 31-August 2, 2009 at the Country Club of Brewton, Alabama. The cost is $500 per each individual two-man team, according to my sources, and as I drilled through Boo’s official website ( www.booweekley.com ) this morning there was the strong suggestion that much fun will be had, including: the experience of a handsome golf course, goofin’ with Boo, food, drink and a performance by Tracy Byrd. Regarding the music, I initially read the next part of that blurb at Boo’s site to mean that Hank Williams, Jr. himself would be walking up in there, or his Hellbilly playin’ son, Hank III.(By mid-morning, I’d seemed to become mildly delusional.) And so all of this stampeded me into calling a buddy in Montana who plays golf, suggesting that tickets to Montgomery were cheap. That’s when I was ratcheted back down to Earth, reporting now that those attending Boo’s Camp Compass Scramble will have to console themselves with a very intimate sessionfeaturing the velvet pipes of T-Byrd and the extraordinary Hank Jr. Bama Band, but minus the actual Country Boy Survivor.

My calls to Boo’s friend and the event’s organizer, Toggy Pace ( toggy@bellsouth.net ), this morning glanced off a saturated voice-mail system.But, yes, this is the same Camp Compass that you’ve read about here and seen on Mossy Oak’s Hunting The Country television series, the charity created and managed by John Annoni ( www.campcompass.org ), who, along with Mossy Oak’s Ronnie “Cuz” Strickland, will undoubtedly be there playing golf and signing copies of their new books. Further, I have it by good authority that the Mossy Oak Camo Cameras will be roaming the occasion for a variety of upcoming television possibilities.

If you’re looking for a very enjoyable, charitable, very moderately priced live-action event for the first weekend in August, Boo’s Camp Compass Scramble awaits you.The smart money books now and requests the earliest tee times available, because, wet or dry, there will be all sorts of heat in the Dog Days of L.A.

In The Photos: Second from top, Boo Weekley, circa the late 1900s, holding a rack and wearing what appears to be a coat in Mossy Oak Bottomland. Third and fourth from top, the micro-poly Firethorn core of the Boo Collection, which feature models in Mossy Oak Duck Blind. Finally, Ronnie “Cuz” Strickland shushing a boisterous crowd during the auction phase of a bygone Boo’s Camp Compass Scramble.