The Real McCoy

More than a little bit country, Boo Weekley is a slick ball-striker who brings a folksy genuineness to the pro game

Weekley's country ways brought him attention, but there was a solid game beneath the surface.

By John Hawkins

Photos By Darren Carroll

May 4, 2007

The rattlesnake was fixin’ to strike as it crawled between the legs of Tom Weekley’s only son, an 11-year-old kid whose knowledge of such critters was as keen as his ability to interpret the tone of his daddy’s voice. Tom had brought young Boo to southwest Alabama to hunt squirrels, although there was plenty to shoot at back home on the 80 acres the family owned near Milton, Fla. “My grandma used to grab her pistol when she saw a water moccasin passing through,” Boo says, pointing to an area just outside Ed and Abbie Jean Weekley’s porch. “I’ve seen alligators come right up out of the river and go after our cows.”

One thing about the rattler: It tends to fight fair. "I'd already heard a couple of them singing that day," Tom recalls. "And it was real dry, so I knew it was time for them to come out." A hundred miles from familiar turf, Boo maintained a few feet of space behind his father as they walked alongside a creek, a 20-gauge shotgun in his hands, a world of adventure at his doorstep.

Just like that, they stopped. "Boo, is that you playin' with me?" Tom asked.

"No, sir. I ain't playin' no games."

"Boo?"

"Yes, sir."

"Do not move!"

The two stood dead in their tracks as Tom turned to look over his shoulder. He was sure he had heard something.

"Boo, do you love me?"

"Yes, Daddy. I love you."

"Do you trust me?"

"Yes, Daddy."

"I want you to pass me that shotgun real slowly."

The boy did as he was told.

"Do not move!" his father repeated.

He tried his best to stand still over that three-footer to win the Honda Classic in March, but after four years on the competitive fritz and no proven experience from his only prior season on the PGA Tour (2002), after months of marital woes and a divorce that would become official in three weeks, a game of peekaboo with prosperity was too much to handle. "My hands were literally shaking," Weekley says of the missed putt, which led to a playoff won by Mark Wilson. "My nerves and adrenaline totally got the best of me."

A lot of funny things, however, happen to a 33-year-old man nicknamed after a cartoon character—Yogi Bear's humble sidekick, Boo-Boo—a friendly version of a predator from the wilderness, no less. Until the Honda, Weekley was but a speck on pro golf's radar screen, little more than a sequel to former senior-tour sideshow Robert Landers. As a rookie in '02, Boo arrived in the big leagues as a one-hit Q school wonder with all the hillbilly highlights. He wore sneakers and rain pants to fight sore feet and an allergy to cotton. He spoke with a five-alarm twang and did outrageous things to the king's English. The best laughs usually come from the guys who aren't looking for one.

Nobody spent much time wondering if Weekley could actually play. Did it even matter? When word spread that Boo once climbed into a ring to spar with an orangutan at a county fair—the ape knocked him out cold with a single punch—John Daly's reign as the anti-tour pro seemed over. The guy was as country as chicken-fried steak, charmingly naive, a 180-degree departure from the self-absorbed standard.

Then he missed his first 10 cuts and made $95,206 in 24 starts. There was no getting around it: Boo had performed very weakly. "I'd played a lot with Joe Durant, who is one of the best ball-strikers out there," says Jimmy Johnston, who earned all-ACC honors at Georgia Tech before joining Crown Sports Management as a player agent. "I saw [Weekley] and could not believe how purely he hit it."