Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson were among four winners on the US PGA Tour last year who decided to stay home from the Mercedes-Benz Championship and the start of the 2008 season.
Boo Weekley thought he might be staying home, too, although not by choice.
He left his tiny town in Florida at dawn on Friday and didn't arrive in Hawaii until the early morning hours of Sunday. That he made it as far as Kapalua was a minor miracle, considering an oversight that showed how little golf Weekley has been playing and how much time he has been spending in his beloved outdoors.
Airport security found two bullets from his rifle in his carry-on bag.
"That was kind of like, right out of the gate started the whole week for me," Weekley said on Monday. "They put the red flags on me. I had the cops there. I thought I was going to jail."
He used that bag during a hunting trip and never saw them when he packed for Hawaii. But as Weekley soon discovered, those airport scanning machines do work.
"I just begged and pleaded," he said. "I just sat there and shook my head like I was an idiot, you know? They confiscated the bullets and then broke down a bunch of stuff, got in everything and put a flag by me. They said they were going to red flag me."
Once he got out of that mess and arrived in Atlanta, he missed his connecting flight by minutes and had to spend the night. Weekley, his son, wife and her parents then caught a flight on Saturday morning to Los Angeles, where they spent nine hours in the airport because of delays.
But it was good to finally arrive and soak in the view from his villa of the Pacific Ocean, with the occasional splash of humpback whales if he can see through the clouds and rain.
The Mercedes-Benz Championship is for winners only, but it will have only a 31-man field when the season begins tomorrow. Woods, a seven-time winner last year, is skipping for the third-straight year. Mickelson hasn't been to Kapalua since 2001. British Open champion Padraig Harrington typically takes a long break in Ireland this time of the year and Adam Scott called over the weekend to say he was taking the week off because of exhaustion.
Those that showed up are reminded of what got them here, especially someone like Weekley.
Last year was his second try on the US tour, and after blowing a good chance at the Honda Classic -- he three-putted from 30 feet on the last hole to fall into a four-man playoff, won by Mark Wilson -- he captured his first US tour victory a month later by chipping in twice and beating Ernie Els in the Verizon Heritage at Hilton Head.
But when asked his biggest thrill of last year, Weekley pointed more toward the loss.
"I learned more about myself at the Honda than however long I've been playing golf," Weekley said. "I learned that I'm a better person than I thought I was -- a better player. Three-putting the last hole ... I felt like crying."
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