Boo Weekley makes first PGA TOUR in 18 months since surgery, cancer scare

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KAPALUA, Hawaii – Ian Poulter was an animated figure as he spent several minutes demonstrating potential drop scenarios with a rules official on the first tee at the Plantation Course on Tuesday night. Bryson DeChambeau was over at the nearby putting green still experimenting with speeds and angles of flagstick in and flagstick out putting. He’d been doing it a for a few days.  Bubba Watson was having fun with it on his Instagram account in the days prior.  Jason Day and Dustin Johnson hadn’t bothered to study the changes at all.  Here was the varied approach to the biggest rule changes in golf in decades as the Sentry Tournament of Champions is about to kick off as the first PGA TOUR event played under the new world order. The changes from the USGA and R&A are many — you can get our comprehensive guide on them here — but it is a select few that have some of the players talking. DeChambeau made his intentions clear during the fall series when he admitted he intends to put with the flagstick still in the hole as the new rules allow.  “It depends on the firmness value of the flag. The C.O.R. or coefficient of restitution of the flagstick,â€� he said on his way to winning the Shriners Hospital for Children Open.  DeChambeau knows his method is going to create some division amongst players, too.  “Inside a certain distance it could become a problem. Most people are going to want the flagstick out and I’m going to want the flagstick in,â€� DeChambeau said. “There are going to be weird instances where I want it in because I know it is a benefit. If it’s a 20 to 30-footer I’ll just put it in and it might add a little time taking it in and out. “So I don’t know how I am going to deal with that yet (with playing partners) … it is certainly going to be interesting.â€� His first playing partner will be defending champion Dustin Johnson. The pair will go off in the final group in the opening round on Thursday.  “It’s going to be weird because the flag’s going to be going in and out a lot,â€� Johnson said, smiling. “But it’s all right. I mean it’s not bad.â€� He even said he could envisage a few scenarios he might leave it in himself. “If you got a real long putt or something I might leave it instead of having the caddie stand there and tend it,â€� Johnson said. “Or if you know it’s sometimes if you hit one up there, it’s always awkward trying to take the flag out. You can just tap it in.â€� Johnson admitted to not spending much thought on the changes, saying a poster in the locker room was his first real peek into it all. His brother and caddie, Austin, hadn’t yet immersed himself in it either.  “I had one of the TOUR officials do a printout that I’m going to give to him to study later on today,â€� Johnson said.  In the group ahead of them on Thursday is 2017 Sentry Tournament of Champions winner Justin Thomas.  “If I have an eight-footer to win a golf tournament … I mean no offense, I can’t really take myself seriously if I kept the pin in,â€� Thomas said.  DeChambeau wasn’t perturbed by that, later joking that he’d be very comfortable leaving it in in the same scenario and would take another trophy to go with his now five PGA TOUR wins very seriously.  “All I try to do is use every aspect of the game of golf to my advantage,â€� DeChambeau said in November. “I try to use the rules to my advantage in the most positive way possible. Not trying to skirt around anything, just use them.â€� Golf has always been a sport of integrity where players call infringements on themselves. While plenty of grey areas have been removed with the changes, others have popped up.  We now no longer have to worry about balls moving on greens, a lost ball being stepped on, balls being accidentally double hit, balls accidentally hitting a player or caddie or equipment, accidentally brushing a grain of sand in a bunker, or knocking off a leaf in a penalty area, among other changes.  Many of the changes bring the word accidental into play — and that can cause debate.  “There is just a lot of grey area that is starting to occur and questions are coming up where we didn’t think about that so it is going to come down to integrity,â€� DeChambeau said. “We are playing for millions of dollars … what do you think could happen?â€� The changes to green reading books sparked the most debate in a player meeting in Kapalua.  Limitations on the books have been placed with any putting green image that is used during the round limited to a scale of 3/8 inch to 5 yards. A yardage or greens book must also meet a size limit of 7 inches x 4.25 inches. Any hand-drawn or written information by the player or the caddie is allowed, but only if contained in a book or paper meeting this size limit (other than a hole placement sheet).  Questions came a plenty. Can a caddie or player trace their old books and then cut them into a four by seven square that fits in a book? The other debate came around the new drop rules where you drop from knee height. Now if the ball bounces from the drop into your body accidentally then there is no penalty. The interpretation around intent here has some players waiting to see how it plays out.  Rory McIlroy said it had provided some comedic fodder for players, especially at shorter players expense.  “Guys are practicing drops from your knees,â€� Mcilroy said. “We’re saying that Brian Harman has got a big advantage, he can basically place it. Where you got someone like Tony Finau who is dropping it probably from like waist high for me.â€� One thing is certain: There will be an adjustment period, and everyone should try to remain as patient as possible. “Everybody’s going to be calling a rules official in as much possible,â€� Thomas said. “So unfortunately play is probably not going to be too fast. But it’s tough, with anything, with change it’s always going to be different. “I’ve tried to study up … You would hate to get penalized just for making a mistake for something you’ve done your whole life, so it will be different.â€� Despite all the debate and talk amongst the playing throng, McIlroy said there was still an overbearing feeling of change will be for the best.  “I’ve always said that the rules of golf are way too complicated, especially after the debacles and farces we have had at U.S. Opens and all sorts of stuff over the last few years,â€� McIlroy said. “So I’m happy that they made the decision to try and simplify them and just try to make everything a little bit easier to understand.â€�

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There were nights when his parents wouldn’t eat so he could, tournament directors who accepted an IOU in lieu of an entry fee, and utility bills that went unpaid. RELATED: Q & A with Vasicki So the moment was choked with emotion when Sarasota mini-tour pro Michael Visacki, 27, Monday-qualified into this week’s Valspar Championship and called home to break the news. “I made it,” he croaks amid the tears, his father alternately cheering and crying. The hundreds of thousands of miles driven on his 2010 Honda Accord. The job cleaning carts. The ball that got stuck in a tree and led to a heartbreaking double bogey in the second stage of Q School in 2019. Visacki, who still lives at home with his parents, has come a long way to arrive at his first PGA TOUR start since turning pro in 2014, and the viral video shows just how long. “Just a lot of people give up on their dreams, probably because they can’t afford it,” Visacki said in a press conference Tuesday afternoon, when he was again overcome by emotion as he tried to explain the public’s reaction to his emerging story. “But I’ve been lucky enough to be with my parents and been able to help me out sometimes to keep living it.” Visacki is an only child. His parents, Mike and Donna, own a transport company that ships wheelchairs and stretchers and have done so for about 16 or 17 years. Michael showed great talent as a junior golfer, but developing that talent sometimes proved too costly. “Tournaments would want us to register about two weeks in advance to know that they had so many players in,” he said. “And sometimes money was tight where my parents would call the director and be like, ‘Do you mind putting my son in? I’ll have the money for you when we get to the event.’ And they knew that I was a really good junior golfer, so they would accept that, they would waive that restriction for me back in the junior days.” And Visacki was good. Having played tennis as a boy, he switched to golf at age 8, inspired by his dad. He grew so big and strong the Riverview High School football coach wanted to put him on the offensive line, but Visacki said no, he was a golfer. The coach soon realized he was right. Visacki played one year for the University of Central Florida, then turned pro. Playing 30-45 tournaments a year, he racked up 37 victories on the West Florida Pro Golf Tour and made his reputation as a big-time talent. He qualified for the Korn Ferry Tour’s 2018 Kansas City Golf Classic and finished T27. He lived at home to save money and bought a used Honda Accord he’s since driven 170,000 miles, at one point driving to Utah and back. He tried “six or seven” Monday qualifiers, but the closest he had come before this week was missing a playoff by a shot. Keep your head down, his dad told him. Keep grinding. “Because he knew that I had it,” Visacki said. He worked in the cart barn and pro shop at Serenoa Golf Club in Sarasota to make ends meet, sometimes closing the pro shop at 5, 6 o’clock and then hustling out onto the course to chase the sun. Never, he said, did he consider quitting. Not even after his ball got stuck in the tree to derail his Q School hopes by one shot in 2019, an agonizing close call that nearly broke him. “I don’t know how I was able to even drive,” he said of his somber ride home. His dream of playing his way into the Valspar almost fizzled when his tee shot stopped just short of going into a bush on the first extra hole. He chipped out sideways and got up and down from 107 yards and survived when Chris Baker missed his birdie putt. Visacki had his own birdie try from 20 feet on the second extra hole. “The first thing I was like, man, I have a chance to, if I make this putt I’m playing, I’m going to be playing in the Valspar,” he said. “But after that I was like, OK, I got to not think about that, I got to think about putting the best stroke possible, picking out a good line with me and my caddie and we picked out a great line and I hit the spot and it went in the hole.” Visacki embraced his caddie Kaylor Steger, a friend and fellow pro, and broke down. Then came the freighted phone call, and the viral video, and his reputation quickly growing far beyond all those mini-tour victories. Of his chances at establishing a foothold on the Korn Ferry Tour and/or PGA TOUR, and finally being able to make a decent living as a golfer, Visacki said, “I mean I think it’s just trying to get one percent better every day. I feel like I’m not that far off.” He added, not without ample evidence, “I know I’m capable of doing it.” For the Valspar’s newest fan favorite, the dream is coming together right before our eyes.

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