(Reuters) – Former Ryder Cup player Boo Weekley is back on a leaderboard, more than a year after having a cancerous tumor removed from a shoulder and losing his status to play full-time on the PGA Tour.
Fortified by a good day of fishing on the high seas in the tournament lead-up, the self-described ‘redneck’ from the Florida panhandle carded a second straight five-under-par 66 in the second round at the Bermuda Championship at Port Royal on Friday.
Fellow Americans Harry Higgs (65), Brendon Todd (63) and Scottie Scheffler (69) led at 11-under 131 in a tournament that offers a chance for the tour’s bottom feeders in the absence of the big boys who are either playing the WGC-HSBC Champions or having the week off.
It is an opportunity welcomed by Weekley, who gets into only a handful of events these days due to his diminished status as a past champion.
The three-times PGA Tour winner, who played on the victorious 2008 U.S. Ryder Cup team, last triumphed in 2013, but injuries and then the tumor sent his career into the rough.
He said he was at home this week on a course where he does not have to worry too much about being outhit by more athletic, stronger rivals.
“You ain’t overpowering the course. You can bunt it around here,” Weekley, who hails from the small Florida town of Milton, said.
Weekley jokingly batted away a question of whether he was showing his younger rivals a thing or two.
“I ain’t saying I’m showing them how to play. They might be making a little more mistakes than I am.”
(Reporting by Andrew Both in Tokyo; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman)
