Forget Man vs. Wild, golf has Boo vs. Wild

If Boo Weekley had his own TV show (and who wouldn't watch that?), it would be on the Discovery Channel, not the Golf Channel. After getting a turtle to scare Anthony Kim at the Wachovia Championship last year, Boo's now offering advice on how to fend off South Carolina no-see-um bugs at Harbour Town this week.

You just take a little napkin and pour some Listerine onto it, and pat yourself down on your arms, and just pat it around the side of your head and ears and everywhere, and you should be fine.

It makes me smell good, too. And if you can got bad breath, you can just lick it off my arms and I can fix that, too.

I've tried using Scope but they [insects] like Scope so why would you put Scope on your body when Listerine works?

Watch out, Bear Grylls.

Boo Weekley will be easy to spot

AUGUSTA, Ga. — Back in January at the PGA Merchandise Show in Orlando, Cleveland Golf representatives approached Boo Weekley with the idea of wearing a special hat on the opening day of the Masters.

A well-known hunter and outdoorsman, Weekley had no issue with the idea of wearing a safety-orange camouflage hat, so look for him to don this lovely number today.

Boo Weekley gallops onto the Tonight Show

Boo Weekley, who made quite an impression at the Ryder Cup this year, made an appearance on Leno last Thursday. His entrance was reminiscent of his gallop down the fairway during the Sunday singles matches last month, and he was as big a hit on late night TV as he was at Valhalla.

Despite success, Holmes and Weekley show they have a lot to learn

LOUISVILLE, Ky. — J.B. Holmes and Boo Weekley have a down-home style that clicks with the Louisville crowds. On the driving range Friday afternoon, Holmes was bombarding the stage where the opening ceremonies were held on Thursday. It was about about 325 yards away, and the grandstands erupted in cheers every time Holmes bounced one off the roof.

As Weekley practiced his putting, a man wearing a camouflage hat said to his pal, "Man, I love Boo. He's wearing blue pants, black shoes and white tube socks!" With a Tennessee accent, his friend replied, "Hell, he's just happy he found a pair of socks."

Everywhere the pair went during their four-ball match against Lee Westwood and Soren Hansen on Friday, choruses of "Boooooo" filled the in the air. Holmes, who was an All-American at the University of Kentucky, was greeted with hollers of "Go Cats!"

But for all the flag-waving and cheering the pair incited, Holmes and Weekley's inexperience was glaringly evident in two key situations.

At the Ryder Cup, No Experience May Trump Bad Experiences

There’s a reason “EXPERIENCE” is the first thing we list on our resumes: It matters. Experience is where we’ve been. It’s what we’ve done. It’s who we are. It’s a “massive asset,” England’s Lee Westwood said today at Valhalla.

Westwood was speaking of Ryder Cup experience, and he should know, having amassed 15 1/2 points in five Ryder Cups. But what if a player has only losing Ryder Cup experiences in his back pocket? Or, worse yet, only drubbings? (See the Team USA members of 2004 and ’06.)

What’s that kind of experience worth?

“Anybody who has played Ryder Cups in the last 12 years, I mean, we've lost five of the last six Ryder Cups, so most of their experiences are bad experiences,” U.S. captain Paul Azinger said last month. “So it’s not like experience is going to be a great help.”

Zinger wasn't just yapping. He went on to award three of his four captain’s picks to players without a lick of Ryder Cup experience: J.B. Holmes, Hunter Mahan and Steve Stricker. It’s better to have no Ryder Cup memories, Azinger seemed to be implying, than a scrapbook full of bad ones.

Westwood today took the discussion a step further, noting that to gain experience, you, well, need experience. “There might be a rookie on the American team that’s just made for the Ryder Cup, really raises his game for that situation. We’ve yet to find out,” he said. “I think it may be the same on our team. We've got four rookies and they might settle in quite easily. Who is to say Justin Rose isn’t going to be an unbelievable Ryder Cup player and never lose a match? So you never know all of these things.”

Which has helped make the Ryder Cup the game’s most consistently compelling drama. Even in blowouts, it’s great fun seeing which Ryder rooks can weather the pressure -- and which fold like Origami. 

“These guys have all withstood a lot already to get here,” Stewart Cink, a four-time U.S. Ryder Cupper, said today of the American debutantes, who also include Ben Curtis, Anthony Kim and Boo Weekley.

“I think being a first time Ryder Cupper in 2008 is maybe quite a bit different than it was in the ’80s or the ’70s because there are so many big tournaments around the world. Golf is scrutinized more than ever before, and the Ryder Cup is just another event of which you have to really perform well. So they are tested. The six guys that are on our team that have never played the Ryder Cup before have a lot of experience in other ways.”

Just look at their resumes.

Who's Telling the Truth, Boo?

Boo Weekley shot a second-round 71 at The Players. Afterwards, he came to the interview room and called me a liar.

Well, no. Now that I’m reading the transcript, I see that it’s his daddy that Boo called out.

Here’s the background. I wrote a “Boo at the Masters” feature for SI Golf Plus, and the gist of it was that Weekley probably isn’t as winningly dense as he pretends to be. As evidence I quoted his pharmacist dad, Tom Weekley, who said, “They talk about Boo not knowing much about the Masters, but he’s read books and books on Ben Hogan. You can’t read that much about Hogan and not know about the Masters.” He added, “It’s not really a front, but there’s a side of him that people don’t know.”

Tom Weekley’s comments could have been overlooked, but Boo followed up his T-20 finish at the Masters by driving to Hilton Head the following week and successfully defending his Verizon Heritage title. So the pressing question of spring has been: Is Boo for real?

Fast forward to this afternoon’s Boo conference. Craig Dolch of The Palm Beach Post raised his hand and said, “There was a story in SI a couple of weeks ago, and they quoted your dad as saying you know a lot more about golf than you let on.”

“Daddy’s full of it,” Boo said, getting a big laugh. “Daddy wasn’t never there. I mean, he was there, but, like, he said I read a bunch of Hogan books. I read TWO Hogan books, and they were my neighbor’s.”

While the reporters puzzled over the significance of owned books versus loaned books, Boo tried to distance himself further from his elitist dad. “He said I probably read every Hogan book there was, I think somebody quoted him saying.”

That somebody, of course, would be me.

Boo finished his answer to Dolch by refuting allegations that he actually pays attention to Tour news. “I do watch a little more golf,” he said. “But I mean, that ain’t nothing. If I’m laying around the house at night getting ready to fall asleep, I’ll flip over and see what is golf, what is on. But I ain’t going to sit there and just watch it.”

That’s a non-denial denial if I ever heard one. But trust me, it’s genuine Boo.

(Photo: Richard Heathcote/Getty Image)

Good Times, Good Times

It's not a coincidence that Boo Weekley successfully defended his title at Hilton Head, or that Tom Watson did the same at the Outback event on the Champions tour. Lorena Ochoa, playing in the Ginn in Reunion, Fla., also won an event on a golf course where she finished a shot back last year. Part of it is horses-for-courses. Hilton Head has small greens, and Boo hits it close. The TPC Tampa Bay, where Watson won, is pretty long with wavy greens -- that suits his game. Ochoa plays beautifully everywhere, but especially on Bermuda greens.

But there's more to it than that. Memories, positive and negative, are as potent in golf as they are in life. Nothing promotes good shots like good rhythm, and nothing promotes good rhythm like good memories.

A Bewildered Boo Weekley

Boo Weekley is a media star. He's got the polite manners. He answers questions with "Yes-sir" and "No ma'am" and looks you in the eye. He comes off as a backwoods rube, but he's smart enough to play the role and feed the media what they want.

Last month, he acted surprised when he heard that the Masters was coming up in a few weeks. I didn't buy that but I do enjoy hearing the man talk.

I was standing behind the 18th green at the end of Saturday's round when CBS commentator Jim Nantz climbed down from the telecast tower and ambled toward the players' scoring trailer. I talked to him for a minute but he was interested in getting some face time, he said, with Boo. They had never met, Nantz said.

When Boo signed his card and came out, Nantz was there to introduce himself and have a short, smiling conversation.

Later, after Boo finished another rollicking interview session in the press tent, I asked him about meeting Nantz. "Wail (that's southern for "Well"), he said he just wanted to put a face with a name," Boo said. "He was real nice."

"What was the conversation about?" I asked, "Did he ask any deep questions?"

Boo shook his head. "I don't even know what he does," he said.

"He's a golf commentator," I said. "I'm sure you've heard him on college basketball or football."

"Wail, either I don't watch much of that or I just don't listen," he said, non-plussed.

My favorite Boo line came from last summer after he'd returned from his first British Open. A writer said, "Boo, I heard you just spent ten days in the U.K."

"No sir," Boo answered, "I was in Scotland."

He's too good to be true.

(Photo: Streeter Lecka/Getty Images)

Boo's Mom to Tee It Up

Patsy Weekley will play with her son Boo in the Wednesday pro-am at the Verizon Heritage in Hilton Head, S.C., but she was a late entry, and Boo had to pull some strings. “I figured as the defending champion he might be able to get me in,” Patsy said at the Masters, where Boo finished 20th in his first try for the green jacket.

Boo’s mom is the athlete in the family, according to her husband Tom. (He modestly adds, “I can’t walk and chew gum.”) Patsy was a two-time all-state pick as a fast-pitch softball pitcher and shortstop at Morgan County High School of Hartselle, Ala. She’s a passable golfer, too, having played to a 10 handicap in the past, and Boo considers her one of his swing coaches.

“Boo and I talk,” Patsy said at Augusta. “Sometimes if he’s at home and having a problem, he’ll ask me to come out to the range and take a look. But he doesn’t like to tinker with his swing. A lot of things, he can just see it on a video and pick out what he’s doing wrong.”

Note to Boo for the pro-am: Remember to comb your hair and tuck in your shirt.

(Photo: Weekley after winning the Verizon Heritage last year, by Steve Grayson/WireImage.com)

The Genius

My newest golf hero is Boo Weekley. The man's a golfing genius, in the tradition of Ian Woosnam, Sandy Lyle, Fred Couples, Payne Stewart,  Billy Casper. Keep it simple. The swing is beautiful. One plane, back and down, not an extra move, nothing hitchy, just great. But here's the best part. He played Augusta National in the first round of the Masters and did not know that 15 is a par 5.

It is, of course, one of the most famous par-5s in golf, but who cares? The beauty thing about not knowing is that it shows that Mr. Boo  is doing exactly what you're supposed to do: play the hole (and every other one) in the fewest strokes possible. Par be damned. Drive it good on 15--borrowing Boo grammar here--it's a two-shotter. Drive it bad, it's a three-shotter. Point of fact, if Boo could putt like Tiger, he'd be Phil. Really. He'd be the second best golfer in the world.

(Photo: Robert Beck/SI)