Asked about a putt for eagle that he had narrowly missed on 15, Boo says, "I thought it was a par-4, to tell you the truth. I didn't know it was a par-5."
His parting words: "Thank y'all. You have a good one."
Boo's father and mother followed him for all 72 holes of the Masters, and while both of them satisfy the public imagination up to a point — Tom Weekley chews tobacco and bellows, "Yeah! Boo-Boo!" from behind the ropes, and Patsy Weekley keeps the sun off her forehead with outlandish hats — neither is a hick.
Tom is a pharmacist and Patsy worked as a registered nurse.
"They talk about Boo not knowing much about the Masters," Tom said, strolling through the pines by the 13th hole, "but he's read books and books on Ben Hogan. You can't read that much about Hogan and not know about the Masters."
What's more, the Weekleys used to cross the cul-de-sac from their fairway home in Milton to the house of neighbor David Banks for his Masters-week barbecues, giving the ribs and the TV equal attention.
"But Boo ain't gonna tell nobody that," Tom said. "It's not really a front, but there's a side of him that people don't know."
Patsy, meanwhile, bought into the whole Augusta National mystique. The azalea-spattered view from behind the 6th green was "the kind of stuff that couldn't be painted, it's so pretty." Patsy added, "This is just so exciting. When I walked through the gates yesterday ... chill bumps!"
Asked why her son didn't seem to share her excitement, Patsy said, "It's his way of putting everything in perspective. It's hard enough to concentrate and play good without getting caught up in the beauty and the crowds and the history."
Again with the history. Well, we're here to tell you that Weekley didn't make history last week — not the books-will-be-written- about-it kind, anyway. But he definitely had his scrapbook moments.
One came on the par-5 13th hole in the first round. Two over par at the time, Boo drilled a five-iron approach from a sidehill lie to a tricky left-front pin and then drained a 12-footer for eagle, eliciting a roar from the grandstand along with choruses of "Booooooo!" ("Sometimes I think they just like the name," he says. "I don't think I'd be as big a hit as Thomas Weekley.")
On Day 2, needing a par on the 18th to be confident of making the cut, Boo sliced his drive over the trees onto the 10th hole, leaving a long, uphill shot over more trees and a giant scoreboard.
He nuked that approach into the gallery left of the green's upper tier, leaving a diabolical chip to the hole, which was cut on the lower level. With a minimum of fuss, Boo nudged his ball onto the green and watched it trickle toward the opposite fringe before boomeranging back down the hill to within a foot of the hole.
"We had that shot during the practice rounds," he said, giving a nod to caddie Joe Pyland, "so we knew what it was gonna do."
That's what makes Weekley so intriguing: the contrast between his lunch-pail pronouncements and his polished game. Yes, he has wrinkled pants and a paunch — the product of long hours sitting immobile in duck blinds — but Weekley also has one of the best swings on Tour, a repeatable, stays-on-plane action that would have made Hogan smile.
