FanHouse Boo Weekley

Boo Weekley joined the PGA Tour in 2002, more backwater cult figure than professional golfer. He lost his card after the season and languished on the Nationwide Tour till 2005, but he's gone from rain pants and sneakers to big boy clothes, two tour wins, one outstanding Ryder Cup showing, and is now the 67th-ranked player on the planet.

Not bad for a dude who called Augusta National "just another golf course," admitted that he "couldn't tell you" which holes constituted Amen Corner, and thought George W. Bush was dead.

Here is some news that will make you want to leave work Monday and go get some wings and a beer. John Daly has announced he is getting set to return to the European Tour in April and "reclaim his place in the game." In related news, I pulled an ab muscle today laughing.

According to Bud Martin, Daly's manager with SFX World, Daly has spent the time since his last start in December working on his game and his body to prepare for a comeback that will likely start in late April on the PGA European Tour.

Although Martin said he is still negotiating with European officials, the plan is for Daly to play three or four events in Europe. After that, however, it is unclear when he will be able to return to the PGA Tour.

The commercial campaign with Phil Mickelson from a few years ago that asked the open-ended question, "What will Phil do next?" is as spot-on today as it was when it came out. It seems that, thanks to his erratic play over the last two weeks, Lefty has been on a rampage to give anyone and everyone in his camp a heart attack.

After his all-over-the-place win at the Northern Trust Open last Sunday, Mickelson came to Marana, Ariz. as the second seed in the Ben Hogan bracket. Now, two days into Accenture Match Play, and many upsets later, Mickelson is the tournament's only hope of keeping the public's interest through the weekend.

I like Boo Weekley. I think he's good for golf in much the same way John Daly was in the early '90s before beer-soaked Twinkies took over his life. Boo's Al Czervik to the PGA Tour's Judge Smails except he's not acting. What you see is what you get. He's Larry the Cable Guy without the shtick.

Which is why this makes perfect sense.

Since it isn't necessary for everyone to be as big a golf nerd as I am, a few things can slide. As frustrating as it is to be asked "what did I shoot" on each hole, it is acceptable (although, "make" or "score" sounds a little less clueless). I'll even let "what did you golf?" slide, if it is from a girlfriend who is just trying to peer into your life a little after 18 holes with your buddies.

What seems a little far-fetched and ridiculous? Anthony Kim, the second coming of Tiger Woods, not having any clue how many major championships El Tigre has won. Has Kim been hanging out with Boo Weekley too much lately?

At the press conference on Tuesday at the Mercedes Championship in Hawaii, Kim gave all the guys with microphones an absolute gem.

"I'm not a huge golf fan, so I don't know all the stats," Kim said. "I really thought he had won about eight majors, and he told me he won 14. I didn't know that."

Not a huge golf fan means you don't know what a pitching wedge is. Not a huge golf fan means "bounce" confuses you. Not a huge golf fan means you think a mashie is running over your buddies ball with your golf cart tire.

Yes. Yes, is your answer. Yes, that title is serious. Yes, Boo Weekley, we're assuming, can read and write. Yes, the most charismatic and interesting player on the PGA Tour has decided to take his incredible personality to the printing press, and the only thing I ask is: Can this please be published before Father's Day? My dad is hard to buy for.

Weekley, who has mused over fighting an Orangutan, dropping his keys in a Port-O-Potty during Jay Leno and showed how to properly ride your driver during the Ryder Cup, admitted yesterday to wanting to start this biography.

People with eyes, rejoice.

"We just trying to start out - we are trying to start it out and just trying to - of how I got into golf, you know, and what my past has been like and the things that I've come about and the thing that I've overcome, just different things like that. It's just mostly about golf, right now until we find a publisher and then I started throwing some other stuff in there."

Well, from that above sentence we can all assume Boo isn't going to be slaving over a typewriter. He said a guy from Jackson, Miss. named Paul Brown is writing the book. I'm sure Paul is good and all, but is he really going to bypass the FanHouse golf group and not do write this book collectively?

I don't think it is crazy talk to consider Boo Weekley the second most popular golfer in the country right now behind Tiger Woods.

His breakout performance at the Ryder Cup just showed a larger audience what some of us golf nerds have known for a while -- that the guy can fire up a crowd faster than Nicollette Sheridan streaking through a fraternity house. The video from his appearance on The Tonight Show last week is up and, let me tell you, it's an absolute afternoon-maker.

I think a +1 is in order to the person that does scheduling for The Tonight Show. Weekley, with all the smarts of cutting your steak with a spoon, was on the same couch as Dennis Miller, one of the quicker-witted guys of our time and someone with a vocabulary that makes Webster rock in his chair. I have no idea if this was on purpose or not, but if so, I want the name of the person in charge so I can send him or her a box of very expensive chocolates.

Weekley emerged doing the same Happy Gilmore dance that he did on the first fairway at Valhalla and then went into this little story, after the jump, about losing his keys in a Port-o-Potty. Check out the interview, which is short but absolutely worth it, after the jump.

Most of us have moved on from the American Ryder Cup victory last week, but I'm sure European captain Nick Faldo is still smarting from the U.S. upset, as well as the media dressing down that followed.

If there's a bright spot -- other not having to ignore Colin Montgomerie's phone calls now that the Cup is over -- it's that Sergio Garcia, arguably Europe's best player, has his captain's back.

Sergio Garcia leapt to the defence of unsuccessful European Ryder Cup captain Nick Faldo on Saturday, describing harsh criticism of the Englishman in newspapers this week as horrendous. ...

"Fortunately, [the Ryder Cup] happens only once every two years in golf but it happens all the time in football back at home. When a team loses, it's always the coach's fault.

"They never pick on the players like they should or give enough credit to the other team like they should."

To be fair, I've done my part to make sure the players catch hell for various absurdities. Whatever, Garcia's saying the right things even if his words don't hold true. Granted, Faldo struck gold with one of his captain's selections, Ian Poulter, but his strategery played a huge role in the outcome.

Sitting Garcia and Lee Westwood during the Saturday morning matches, and then sending out three of his best players late in Sunday's singles matches all contributed to the Americans winning the Cup for the first time in nine years.

Of course, Boo Weekley, J.B. Holmes and Hunter Mahan playing out of their minds all had something to do with it, too.

Last week, after the Ryder Cup made its way back into American hands for the first time in nine years, the Europeans commenced with the whinging. Lee Westwood was first up, complaining about Boo Weekley's unseemly on-course actions, and then Ian Poulter, who was one of the few bright spots for Nick Faldo in the three-day event, accused Anthony Kim of body-checking him during last Saturday's fourball match.

Apparently, it did happen, just not as Poulter contends.

"I wasn't even paying attention and I looked up and Ian had just bounced off me," said Kim, who helped the US to their first Ryder Cup win since 1999.

"I didn't even see him, to be honest. I'm a lot shorter than he is, so I'm not going to throw my elbow into him," he added.

"I wasn't out there to bump anybody. That's not the spirit of the Ryder Cup. This isn't football. I'm sorry he took it personally."

Kim added, "I finally tracked down Poulter during the closing ceremonies, walked up to him and slapped him in the face with an open hand. I said, 'See, THAT was on purpose; the forearm shiver yesterday, THAT was an accident. Got it?'" Kim then walked away and Poulter promptly collapsed in a heap and sobbed uncontrollably.*

Back on Earth, no clue if Poulter ever got word that Kim's actions were, in fact, an accident, but I'm quite certain he was over the whole affair as soon as he settled into that comfy salon chair to have those tips re-frosted.

* Fiction. Duh.

Lee Westwood might not have cared much for Boo Weekley's homespun pearls of ... well, something, but Kentuckians embraced the Florida native as one of their own, and after an impressive Ryder Cup showing, the guy who once got "Deebo-ed" by an orangutan is now a media fascination, as well.

It's all very entertaining in a peeking-through-your-fingers-at-the-freak-show sorta way.

In any event, the Los Angeles Times' Thomas Bonk documents some of Boo's best redneck philosophizing from last week. It's not exactly Descartes, but Weekley's take on his Ryder Cup uni could be the 21st century's "cogito ergo sum." Or something: