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Down-home Weekley not your average PGA player

Submitted by SHNS on Thu, 02/28/2008 - 12:55

PALM BEACH GARDENS, Fla. -- If Toby Keith makes your kind of music ...And Jeff Foxworthy does your kind of comedy ...And Cracker Barrel is your kind of place to eat ...Then Boo Weekley is your kind of golfer.Because this is no act.He really is a redneck, born in the tiny, Florida Panhandle city of Milton and currently living in a trailer in the even-tinier town of Jay, which has a population of about 700 folks."I think the good Lord started there and then went everywhere else," Weekley was saying the other day at PGA National, home of this week's Honda Classic, where he settled for a second-place finish last year after missing a three-foot par putt on the 72nd hole."He's given us everything. I mean, seriously. We've got everything you could think of down there -- except snow, thank goodness. Don't want no snow, which it does about once every five years. It just don't stick. But you can see it."By "everything," he means everything a country boy could want.Like hunting.And fishing.That's why he owns a golf cart."I can get in my golf cart and be in my tree stand within 10 minutes," Weekley said. "I can be on the river in the same golf cart in about 20 minutes, if I wanted to ride that far with it. But it wouldn't pull my boat or jet skis or nothing."Not all the way from his trailer.Which, by the way, is only his temporary residence."I'm building a house exactly about 15 feet right out the front door," Weekley said in his countrified, Larry-the-Cable-Guy version of English. "But I'm just about ready to blow it up and start all over again, I reckon. It's aggravating. We was supposed to be in by Halloween. And then we was supposed to be in at Thanksgiving. And then we was supposed to be in at Christmas."The house still isn't ready.So maybe by Easter? "I don't want to throw another one out there," he said. "I would like to be home so, when we do move in, at least I can help move some of the stuff."That might not be such a good idea, though.After returning from the World Cup event in China in November, Weekley was rebuilding his barn when he fell off a ladder, crashed onto the concrete floor and injured his left shoulder, where he already was battling bursitis."I've had an MRI on it, and its just a little micro tear," he said at last week's World Golf Championship event in Arizona. "It's just bursitis that got inflamed."Once the house is finished, though -- he now hopes to move in by the end of April -- it will cover 3,100 square feet and include a large master bedroom, two kids bedrooms and a bonus room upstairs."That's going to be my Alabama room," he said, "and where I hang all my deer heads, since I can't hang them over the mantle."Yes, Weekley loves to hunt."I love the smell of that gunpowder burning," he said.And he eats whatever he kills.Just like his great-granddaddy taught him."We ain't gonna kill nothing unless we're gonna eat it," he said last week. "I learned that quick-like. I shot a blackbird -- blackbird is awful, dude -- and he made me eat it."I shot the bird, and he said, 'If you're gonna shoot this bird and take its life, you need to eat it.' So I brought it in, plucked the feathers off of it and stuck it right in the fryer. It ain't very good, I can tell you that."Weekley can tell you all sorts of fun stories about hunting and fishing and life in the country, all of which he knows well.But ask him about golf, and all he knows is what he has learned firsthand.Unlike most of his PGA Tour peers, he hasn't committed the history of golf to memory. Nor has he fully grasped the nuances of the sport.He doesn't quite get the aura that surrounds Augusta National. ("I know it's supposed to be the elite golf tournament of the year.") He doesn't understand how this whole FedEx Cup thing works. ("I never was good at math.") He doesn't remember the great golf duels of yesteryear. ("I never really watched golf.") Last week, in fact, he had to be told on the course that it was OK to concede short putts in match play."I'm like, 'Pick it up?''' he said. "Honestly, I didn't know."He does know this: He wants to stay on Tour only long enough to make enough money to spend the rest of his life hunting and fishing, watching NASCAR and being a dad to his kids -- without anyone in his family worrying about finances.And he figures that'll take about $8 million.Clear."I want to play 10, 12 years, or whatever it takes to get enough money in my bank, then I'm done," Weekley said. "I love the game, but I get tired of the grind. I get tired of being away from my family. I get tired of being away from my friends."I love to play the game, but my heart is really with hunting and fishing."So, at age 34, the man nicknamed after Yogi Bear's sidekick still has some work to do -- including his first visit to Augusta in April.Weekley earned more than $2.6 million in 2007, when he won the Verizon Heritage and had two other top three finishes. Thus far this year, he has made the cut in five of six events with three top-10s.A victory here, where we first embraced this real-life, storybook character from small-town America, would go a long way.All the way back to Jay.To the trailer.And the golf cart.And turkey hunting season.(Ray McNulty is sports columnist for Scripps Treasure Coast (Fla.) Newspapers, The Stuart News, Fort Pierce Tribune and Vero Beach Press Journal. On the Web at www.tcpalm.com.)