I am going to say my peace and then respectfully back out of this potential debate.

I think the tour needs more players like Boo, who aren't afraid to bring their personalities out onto the golf course. It's a wonderful thing and I think did a lot to help the team overcome the Ryder Cup demons. Plus, Boo is a great a guy.

However, that said, some of his antics bordered on being absolutely obnoxious. The Happy Gilmore dance was good for a few steps, but not all the way from the tee box to the fairway. The awkward raise-the-roof move got silly once he was doing it after every shot. Listen, I couldn't be happier for him and I am thrilled that the US got the cup back, but all of that became a bit of an embarrassment. I know if Europe even came close to doing something resembling the equivalent the US fans would rip into them. Not saying the Euro's are perfect, just saying.

Anyway, congratulations to the new guard on the US team for pulling this out; I look forward to seeing much more of them (with a bit less roof-raising).

boo is boo

genuine good ole' boy..he aint changin'

i thought Boo was a tad over the top. great to see emotion but he was on the boarder of Spectacle.

He was over the top. But he smoked it, so all the discussion on his antics means little, he dominated and that is why he won.
Now the only thing I did not really like was the antics to rouse the crowd after a couple putts when his opponent still had a putt.
Is it the same as justin leonards happy dance all over the green years ago? No way, not close. But you wait until the opponent putts...then you can celebrate...but its rude if they are still waiting to putt.

On other threads the US supporters say "well i see in europe that the crowd cheers a good euro putt, and continues while a US player putts". Well I do not agree, for the most part I have seen them wait until the US player finishes, but even if I was wrong and missed a few misplaced cheers.....?
??? Does the integrity and etiquette of the game over rule your actions? Saying "well they did it.." is not a good excuse.
Explaining your actions away like a 4yr old on a playground does not fly...."well jimmy started it first"

loved it, nobody said nothing when sergio and jesper humped it up after a chip in.

He had fun with it. A virtual nonexistent concept for American players in the past. We'll see how it goes in Wales at Celtic Manor in '10. Hopefully he makes the team, as the Euro (read, English) press loves him.

I for one loved it. I was laughing so hard seeing him get on his driver after the opening shot yesterday trotting down the path. Classic Boo.

Golf needs more Boo's to balance out its stuffy elitist history.

This was VERY exciting! Some will say that because the Americans won is the reason I think it was great (true) but to see Mr. Karlsson make putts for everywhere says one thing to me…. look out world “this guy is good!” Mr. Poulter gained a lot of respect from me as I love the guy that has fire in his gut and he does, there is nothing wrong with showing some emotion, then there was Mr. Garica shouting after holing the long put for birdie and Mr. Stricker (I think) holing out on top of that! Just a great Ryder Cup.
Boo was not over the top as we have seen Euro's and other make motions to excite the crowd, it is about time we let some emotion show! Go Boo! Oh as as far as the British press talking about the way he spoke, we ain't all perfect like you, I am from the poorest county in Kentucky (my home place) and just because we say "ain't" or have a southern draw please don't count us out because we don't speak proper english, we still have great people that are willing to give their all for there fellow man (including the British) there is still something to be said about "Southern hospitality"

I loved the way he behaved, but I didn't think the driving riding was just a little over the top. All in good fun though.

Let the quality of your game speak for itself. Have respect for your fellow competitor - the dancing and excessive celebrating is not necessary. Look at replays of Maris and Aaron when they hit their record setting homeruns - kept their head down as they rounded the bases, no acts of showmanship or disrespect toward the opposing pitcher. Same for the behavior of Jones, Hogan and Nelson when they made a clutch putt or won a tournament. Hagen was an "entertainer" but I do not recall him prancing around the green with fist pumps or dancing the Charleston (thank goodness).
If these athletes were able to control their actions, why can't todays athletes do the same? Just because "the times have changed" does not mean the respect shown for others has to go down the drain.

Respect is still shown. Attitudes and social mores are different now. When you remove your hat, look your opponent in the eye, shake his hand afterward, and say good match that's the utmost respect in my opinion.

Riding the bull...........feeling the flow. That was classic! I hope Boo is on every Ryder Cup team until he dies.

In the good 'ol days it wasn't about the multimillion $ contracts, TV ratings and advertising.

It was about the "game".

It will never be how it was BT. (Before Tiger)

ok, a follow-up question:

we are discussing proper etiquette and behavior in the sport of golf. where do you draw the line? at fist pumps and leaps; or at somersaults and end zone dances?

Chubbs wouldn't have approved.

"What are you doing Happy? ...riding a damn bull?!"


I for one loved Boo's antics. They didn't seemed forced like some other competitors do.

Sorry boys it was over the top, I like Boo as a player (he was awesome) but this is the type of thing that starts to set precedent. Once displayed and accepted now younger players will emulate this behaviour. I love golf because this kind of poor sportsmanship or gamesmanship is/wasnt tollerated.
Its a gentlemans game, kind of ironic that the PGA has advertisements promoting the positive virtues (life skills) that come with playing the game for our young players and then we see this crap!!!

and ya, I am Canadian!

cheers from up here!
Turbs.

Would it be different if a guy sank a long put, then busted out a sharpie, signed the ball and gave it to a fan? Or broke out a cell phone and pretended to make a call? Or made like Usain Bolt, got in the starting blocks and sprinted to the next tee?

Maybe a bit over the top, but I had no problem with it. If he were talking in the middle of a backswing or jiggling change, fine. But he was juiced up too much and let it out. It's not like he said anything about Westwood's mama.

He was genuinely having the time of his life and injected some life in his teammates. About damn time too. Admit it, he's pretty much like the anti-Tiger. Total 180 from his greatness, and I loved it. I laughed so hard when he rode his driver off the first tee. You can't make that stuff up.

I don't care about some of the stuff he does but the spitting and chewing is disgusting. And the way the media kinda of makes fun of him and laughs with him for being A good OLE Boy is really condescending. I find this the most appalling, not necessarily his behavior, which just ends up being goofy. The media treats him like a cute puppy, "look at BOO he is so funny let's hope he says something BOOISH" Stupid.(not boo the press)

i thought it was awesome and in no way believed his actions to be over the top. The ryder cup is different from tour golf, it is a team competition, and when a team has homefield advantage it is extremely important to get the crowd involved, look how how important homefield advantage is in baseball, football, and basketball. Do you think it is innapropriate when a defensive football player tries to get the crowd involved on 4th and inches? I applaud boo for taking it upon himself to get the crowd in on encouraging our team. I only believe actions to be inappropriate if they are made out of disrespect, and i don't think any of boo's actions were meant that way.

With that said, what a ryder cup! Can't wait for wales in '10!

mike

i loved it. i too think golf needs more charachters like Boo. he wasnt being disrespectful, he was having fun. if Europe was kicking our butts, they would've been laughing it up and having all sorts of fun too. but when you are losing, watching other people enjoying themselves isnt fun and sometimes people take it personally...... and i know that if i drained a 30 foot double breaker to win a hole, it would be REALLY hard to wait to celebrate the shot until after the other guy hit. I too would have a quick little celebration, then let the other guy do his thing.....

Boo "riding the horse" off the first tee on Sunday was one of the purest expressions of joy I've ever seen in golf. To me it was a celebration of how much we love this great game. I still laugh thinking about it.

actually you can make that stuff up, if your name is Adam Sandler and this 1996. because he made it up. in 1996.

Edit: i think this brings up an interesting point. if that bull dance move wasn't a move from Happy Gilmore that everyone immediately recognized and instead Boo just whipped it out out of nowhere (though i admit, it was a pretty genius homage on Boo's part), would the reaction have been different? that is to say, would it have seemed more inappropriate? because lets not forget, Boo was a grown man acting like a comedian who is famous for acting like a grown man with the mental capabilities of a 4 year old?

i am one of the many who loved Boo...

but i have a question for everyone who say it's over the top....


what about this... ....


was it over the top?

LOL!

Golf needs more of this.

And you know what? I wouldn't care if the crowd WAS going nuts during an opponent's putt. Heck, you could launch the space shuttle down the street from the course and it wouldn't bother me when I'm putting. Golf has had this gentleman's crap going on for too long. Be a gentleman. But be a sportsman too.

No one shuts up during a free-throw! No one remains quiet when a quarterback is barking out signals. No one stays quiet when there's 100 MPH fastball on the way (and that sucker'll kill ya!). Why is concentration in those sports any different?

That gentleman's etiquette is what keeps a lot of people out of golf. Watching a tournament is boring unless you're a real golf nut (and sometimes even then also!) There's no excitement, no crowd- just polite golf claps (at least until Tiger gets back).

Tiger gets annoyed when cameras fire during his backswing- but that's because it is the only sound. If 10,000 people were all talking, he would tune it out and focus on the job at hand.

We need more Boo!

i agree. i love boo and everything about him. however, i dont think you can really compare golf to those other sports because at a golf tournament, everyone is so quiet, and when someone makes a noise during someones putt or backswing, it can be really distracting. HOWEVER, if everyone was yelling and cheering all the time while the person was putting and swinging, that would be different because I for one could just drown all of that out and take my putt or swing. But when its all quiet and someone distracts you during your backswing, its kind of distracting.... just saying, if it was loud all the time, that would be one thing.

OMG, here we go. how can you even be on this site and not understand the difference between noise during a free throw and a golf shot?

i highly doubt you'd have NO problem sinking a testy 4 footer if it were absolutely quiet and then someone jumped up behind you screaming like an idiot. because of the nature of the sport, there are long periods of quiet. whether it's restricted or not. in order to avoid scenarios like the one above, they have to make sure it remains quiet. if it were a consistent noise level all the time, or even one that rises to obscenely loud volumes but does so at a consistent level (like most major sporting events) it would not matter so much. because that would become the standard level of noise. but the fact is, golf is a quiet game and the littlest noises are amplified.

the fact that there is even a question as to why these differences exist between golf and other sports is absurd. i love golf because it is different from other sports in so many ways. if it doesn't generate enough interest among casual fans because it isn't NFL or NASCAR enough, i could care less. it is what it is, we should celebrate what makes it different, not the things that can make it the same.

i dont think Boo was disrespectful, but he was silly. and i think the poster who mentioned how the press talks down about him because he is from the south is totally correct. when he does it, it comes off as cute and "just another one of those crazy things that southerners do." if phil mickelson did that, they'd have him in therapy by Tuesday.

Boo was great, as much as it pains me to say so, he was the difference between the US winning and losing.... he got the whole team relaxed, got the crowd going....

Yes he may have gone a bit over the top getting the crowd going after holing a putt and Westwood still had a putt for the half, but he just doesn't know any better....

I met Boo at the World Cup of Golf last year and he is just a guy who loves his golf and just wants to play. It was refreshing for the US team and I hope he makes the team for 2010, you'll need him.... because if you think previous Euro crowds were loud, you have no idea how loud it will be a Celtic Manor. It's in the heart of the Welsh football and rugby supporters and they are very partisain....

did anyone else read the story from two years ago in GD about Boo fighting the orangutan. it was hilarious. you gotta read it. boo pumping up the story with the line "that orangutan didn't look like much...." before getting knocked out by the thing. it was the best.

boo is great. he is a whole lot smarter than he lets on, and he should probably stop with the dim-witted good ole' boy thing, but he and Kim basically won the ryder cup.

and remember guys, Jack threw his putter 40 feet in the air and nearly brained Doug Saunders at the Open, Chi Chi was Chi Chi, etc. and those things can back fire as well. it is up to your opponent to get on the accelerator and to beat you after seeing something like that. westwood couldn't beat boo (nobody could this week), Garcia couldn't beat Kim, who was yelling loudly after every shot. It was up to the Euros to play better and give the US team some answers to the celebration, but they couldn't do it.

And yes, Justin Leonard and the whole US team was a bit overboard at Brookline, but this was nowhere close to that. This kind of stuff is good for the Ryder Cup. I would hate to see it every week, to be honest, but it isn't completely out of place here.

my 02

Match play is a bad format to perform antics of any kind because you can look like a god on one hole and puke on yourself the next. When Hunter Mahan made his bomb, he went nuts, then proceeded to go in the hazard on the very next tee shot. I think these guys are so used to medal play that they forget moments of extreme happiness are dashed faster in match play.

I feel Boo was waaaay over the top but I also feel Westwood needs to get whatever crawled up his ______ out of it.

I think great play looks so much better when a guy is reserved, quiet and goes on with his business, unless the shot is to actually win a tournament or a Ryder Cup. You always look like a bigger stud when you dazzle everyone and show little emotion while the crowd and announcers go nuts.

Exactly.
Sergio did the exact same thing on Friday afternoon vs Steve Stricker. The difference was, Stricker drained the putt afterwards. If I remember correctly both guys were smiling afterwards, which tells me that neither Stricker, nor Sergio had a problem with it. Something tells me that if Paul Casey had made the putt on 17 after Mahan, they'd have smiled and talked to each other on their way to the next tee as they had been all day long.

I suppose it is all about the personality of the guy you are playing against, but if someone makes a putt in front of me and gets whooped up, then it makes me want to make mine even more. Then, when it goes in and I get whooped up, we both recognize it is "game on" and have that much more fun for the rest of the match.

DITTO!

LOVED it!! Golf needs more of it!! It's fun to watch the Phoenix Open because the TPC Scottsdale gets so loud.

It's awesome and makes it fun to watch. We need more US Open's like Bethpage Black, where the crowd is wild and into it. It's a sporting event, not chess.

I remember being in the crowd & watching Ken Griffey Jr. one year when he played with Tiger Woods and Mark O'Meara at the AT&T Pro-Am. Before he teed off on a par 3, he asked everyone in the crowd to start cheering and make some noise. It was so much fun. Just when we were the loudest, he teed off and pured an iron to about 10 feet. The crowd went nuts.

That was fun. It would be fun for the crowd to be going crazy just before JB Holmes STUCK his final approach shot to 3 feet, then the crowd goes even crazier afterwards.

Now that would be fun to watch!

Yeah that's the one... I was trying to remember which tournament that was.

How is it that the players can handle the 16th hole at TPC Scottsdale, but they can't handle the noise anywhere else. Somehow, they're still able to play through all the noise there!

He got Hicks to say "Boo's riding the bull.."

Boo's OK in my book. In a team it's OK. Individually it might be a bit over the top and pretentious.

I don't mind his behaviour.. though I hope he won't take it any further. He's got a great character thats unique and different from the rest of the crowd. He's fun to watch.. and he adds that much more fun to the game. I thought his presence at the Ryder Cup this year was absolute genius from Azinger's part.. as his type of 'free' character provides energy for the team which in turn provides confidence. Boo is Boo and I love his character.. I feel he's cemented his character in golf forever.. not like Tiger or Jack with a sense of intensity unlike others.. but a more Snead-like character that hasn't been seen since the likes of Trevino and even Slammin' Snead himself..

My hat goes off to Boo Weekely

+10!!!

You know, I enjoy Boo. I can understand concerns on etiquette and tradition, but it's not like Boo was flicking tees at Westwood or mooning his opponents! He was getting the crowd into it and having fun with it...he was being Boo...

Going beyond it...I love seeing personality in golf! Too many people are so stoic that golf begins to feel dull and boring. Shoot the analysts talk about how many golf swings even look alike anymore. We used to have Palmer, Trevino, Nicklaus with their own unique personalities and styles...it made golf fun and people can really rally behind someone.

Whether it was Kim getting the crowd in a frenzy (hands in the air), Sergio yelling "COME-ON!!!" or Boo riding the bull...keep it coming...these are the things we remember...and the things we rally behind. We see the human element behind the stoic golfer. Who doesn't remember...Austin being "Aqua-Man" or Tiger following his putt into the hole at Valhalla (2000 PGA Championship) or Sergio leaping to see his ball land on the green at Hazeltine then holding his chest in relief?

When asked in an interview "how important it was winning The Ryder Cup"

Boo replied something to the effect .."it's great but not nearly as important as our troops overseas fighting for peoples freedom"

speaks volumes about his character!

it aint showing off if you can back it up....if they had lost he would have looked like a fool

Now who can argue with that?! Boo is now officially the man in my book!

I personally think that guys like Boo open up the world of golf to thousands of kids that would otherwise think that they were'nt good enough to play golf. Middle class and lower class families have a tough enough time getting their kids involved in a game that can be played for a lifetime and used throughout a carrer because of the stigmatism of scocial status that has been asscociated with golf from the beginning. Boo shows that you don't have to be an upper class snob to be great at golf.

The fact that he addresses most everyone by "Sir" and "Mr." shows that his parents did a pretty good job of upbringing. When's the last time you've seen an average kid in the US do that? I personally wish more of the PGA pros would show their true personality and quit being stuffed shirts. Not sure that it should get like NASCAR, but they could stand to loosen up some.

He was out of line getting the crowd fired up before his opponent was finished, but once someone said something to him, I think what he did to keep the crowd involved was very appropriate. I've seen the Euros do the same a number of times.

I would rather watch Boo and JB Holmes play over the majority of the regular PGA field any day. Heck I even like watching Sergio play, except when he's whinning, because he brings some personallity to the game.

i have come around on Boo in regards to the Cup, not that i was against him when i started this post. but you guys have presented very effective arguments. i never meant to say i didn't love what he brought to the Ryder Cup, just wondering how far is too far when it comes to celebrations and such in golf. boorish behavior, whether it be by fans or players, should not be excused anymore than being uptight and unreasonable should not be excused. i wish things like this weren't always so black and white, me vs. them. but the again, i'm the guy who put a very black and white poll at the top of the post.

golf fan of the year.

Classic. I head the announcers talking about a 'ghost' following Boo around. I'm surprised it took this long for someone to do this.

Holloween is right around the corner too. I bet at Boo's next event they'll be a bunch of ghosts running around.

Boo S. A

He's even wearing Golf Shoes...LOL

I loved how these guys took about the task of winning the cup back...With a load of spirit!!

Thats whats was missing from the last Ryder cup.

Q:Loved It?
A: No

Q:Hated It?
A: No

Q:It was ok but just a smidge over the top?
A: No

Q: Infantile, embarassing, childish, boorish, classless, tasteless, lacked respect (for game, himself, public, opponents etc etc etc), idiotic, joke, pathetic, lesson(s) in how not to behave?
A: YES!

FYI: I supported and support the US team (Well 11 of them...) Whether the US team won or not, BW's behaviour cannot be seen to be ok under any circumstances.

Let the abuse roll in!!

There was no genius from Zinger with Boo Weekley, because he qualified automatically, and was not a Zinger's pick...

But for the pick of Mahan, hats off !