Can I tell you about the double eagle I made Wednesday at Cog Hill, home of the BMW Championship? Actually let’s wait on that. It wasn’t even the highlight of my round.
Quick setup: The Western Golf Association was kind enough to invite me (and a few other media members) to play in Wednesday’s Chick Evans Memorial Pro-Am, which raises money for the Evans Scholars program.
By the luck of the draw, my partners and I were paired with Boo Weekley, a good ol’ boy from Milton, Fla., an hour outside Mobile, Ala. Everyone on tour seems to love Weekley, who calls the cup a “bucket” and is so unpretentious he repairs his own ball marks. With a white tee.
As we approached No. 5, we noticed a small gallery surrounding a player. Yes, the phenomenon known as Tiger Woods was striding to the ninth tee, well within shouting distance.
When Woods saw Weekley, he hollered: “There’s my hero. When are you going to sign a hat or glove for me?”
“I will,” Weekley replied. “I’ll sign your undies too.”
So what makes Weekley a hero in Woods’ eyes? Just a guess, but maybe it stems from the PGA Championship, when Sergio Garcia signed an incorrect scorecard and was disqualified. Weekley, Garcia’s playing partner, mistakenly gave Garcia a par-4 on the 17th, rather than a bogey-5. But it was Garcia’s responsibility to check.
Boo almost repeated his boo-boo last week at the Deutsche Bank Championship. Again, Weekley penciled in wrong scores for Garcia, who did manage to correct them.
“We’re sitting in the [scoring] tent and I said, ‘Sergio, I just can’t get this thing right,'” an apologetic Weekley explained.
We had our own scoring issue Wednesday, but it worked to our advantage. I hit a wedge to 20 feet on the 508-yard, par-5 11th, and Weekley gave me the read: “I like it one cup left.” Not bucket?
My putt hit the back of the cup and popped back down, good for a 4. Or, in this case, a net-2. We played with handicaps, and mine’s a 16, but I was listed on the scoring sheet as a 21, the maximum. I guess someone realized I was a sportswriter and just assumed.
So I got two strokes on the hole, giving our team a deuce. (We finished at 11-under, nowhere near the top.)
Weekley, in his words, played “awful,” managing just a birdie or two. But the man who tied for ninth at the PGA Championship could not have been a better “pahdnah.” Good call, Tiger.
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tgreenstein@tribune.com
