HONOLULU – It’s a bit strange seeing Boo Weekley walking the streets of Waikiki. It’s like a snowman visiting the desert. One would have to imagine this down-home fella feels a little out of place. Boo doesn’t swim in the ocean.
‘There’s sharks in there!’ he adds. ‘You won’t ever read about me getting killed by no shark.’
My guess is Boo, it’ll be a bear. After all, you’re nicknamed after one. Boo is mostly a hunter. Deer, quail, dove, pheasant... you name it, he’s probably shot it or has a highly entertaining story about how it got away.
Believe it or not, Boo and I actually have something in common. We both grew up hunting (or in my case, attempting to hunt) with our fathers and doing something called flounder gigging. When I was a little girl, my father and I would fire up the outboard engine boat at midnight and leave for the nearby jetty where the Intracoastal Waterway meets the Atlantic Ocean. You see, for a successful gig, it has to be pitch dark. Once you make your way to the sandbar, you grab your trident and a flashlight. Like a burglar tiptoeing across a living room floor, you sneak up on the flounder embedded in the sand at the water’s edge and you temporarily blind it with the light. Next comes the spear.
It was here in Waikiki that I discovered Boo grew up doing the same thing. You should have seen his face when he found out that I was a fellow flounder gigger. Granted, I didn’t do it for long. By nature, I don’t like to hurt any creature. I’m that person who waves a mosquito out the door before I swat it. It was a bonding experience nonetheless.
Who knows, maybe this weekend Boo can make a run at this Hawaiian title, if he can survive the savvy golf sharks at Waialae.
