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Saturday, August 11, 2007
Weekley’s 65 nearly as fun as big ol’ fish
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Furman Bisher
Tulsa, Okla. — You’ll get your quota of Tiger Woods elsewhere today. This one is reserved for Boo Weekley, known by his birth name of Thomas Brent only by the IRS. But first, a little joust with our television friends here. Late in the second round Friday, the TNT crew had turned to heavy emoting as Woods neared the end of his round, impassioned with a possible round of 62 in view.
“Historical!” it was exclaimed. “Something never before done in major golf.”
True, absolutely true, except that TNT never alerted the audience to the fact that not all majors are played on par-70 courses. The true measure is the number of strokes shaved off par. Southern Hills’ par is 70. Two rounds of 63 have been shot on PGA Championship courses of par 72, nine under par, by Gary Player and Jose Maria Olazabal. Two by Nick Price and Greg Norman in the Masters, par 72, one round of 63 by Paul Broadhurst in the British Open when St. Andrews was played at 72. The best Woods could have done with a birdie on 18 would have been eight under, nice day’s work but nothing historical.
Boo Weekley wouldn’t have been much help, for as he said after a day truly historic in his career, “I never was good at math.”
Boo had just finished a round of 65 on Saturday, his best in a major championship, and he kept an audience of interviewers full of chuckles. He spoke often of his two favorite sports, fishing and hunting, but occasionally of golf. “I had a good day and it was fun, but it would have been funner if I’m setting at the house catching about a 10-pounder,” he said.
Boo played in the British Open this year, his first excursion overseas, and asked if he was surprised at the way he was accepted at Carnoustie, he said, “I was very surprised, I mean, being a foreigner and being who I am. I reckon as long as you’re being yourself, you can’t go wrong.”
The Europeans among the press were knocked out, a sort of a Bennie Hill moment in reverse. Boo was a model of Southern manners. He answered questions with “yes, sir”and “no, sir,” just like his mama taught him. And the weather was just like he liked it. “I like to sweat. The hotter the better.”
Now, to serious business, “Are you looking forward to the FedExCup, and what do you know about it?”
“I don’t know nothing about the FedExCup. I’m just playing golf, and that’s all that matters to me.”
Now, how about the Ryder Cup? “Do you have ambitions to play in it next year, and have you followed it in the past?”
Boo said, “If they invite me to come, I’ll come play. But I don’t know a whole lot about the Ryder Cup stuff.”
Boo Weekley’s career just sort of cropped up out of thin air. All the sports he played as a kid, “I got hurt in every one of them.”
Then a high school coach introduced him to golf. He went off to college, ABAC in Tifton, but the school dropped golf, and Weekley returned home to Milton, Fla., and got a job in a nearby chemical plant for three years. Jack Slocum, Heath Slocum’s father and a local pro, insisted that he use his talent and get back to golf.
“They were laying off at the plant, so I took the layoff and started playing golf.”
He won the first tournament he played in, called The Moors in Milton, and he had found his new career. If it’s not the majors that drive him, then what is it?
“I want to play 10 or 12 years, whatever it takes to get enough money in the bank. I’m done. I love the game; I get tired of the grind. But my heart is really with hunting and fishing,” he said.
“How much money would enough be?”
“I don’t know. I ain’t got that far yet,” Boo said, about which time word arrived that his partner for the day, Sergio Garcia, had been disqualified for signing an incorrect scorecard, one that Boo filled out. Had Boo’s bad arithmetic caught up with him?
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