A Week Outdoors Hunting and Fishing with Boo Weekley
Boo Weekley Has the Heart of a Champion
 Editor’s Note: Thomas Brent “Boo” Weekley of Jay, Florida, one of the nation’s top profession al golfers, is also an avid hunter and fisherman and often takes his rods and reels with him as he tours the world on the Professional Golf Association (PGA) Tour. In 2007, Weekley earned $3 million in tournament winnings. So far, this year, Weekley has won over $2 million. Weekley has been highly successful as a professional golfer, a bass fisherman and a deer hunter, but the greatness of any athlete shouldn’t be measured only by what or how much he wins, but rather the time and the money he donates to others. In this last day with Weekley, you’ll see that he has the heart of a champion.
Question: Boo, what’s Camp Compass, and how are you involved in it?
Weekley: Camp Compass is a charity I became involved with because of my relationship with Mossy Oak. Camp Compass is for inner city kids who live in the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania area. These kids aren’t able to hunt, fish, or go to the woods or the lake. They don’t have any idea about hunting or fishing. This camp teaches them outdoor skills and provides an opportunity for them to learn about the outdoors. To attend Camp Compass, the kids have to keep-up their grades, not get into trouble and work hard all year. John Annoni, who runs and organizes the camp, keeps up with the kids and how they perform in school and selects the kids who are able to participate in Camp Compass. In the South,  where I live, we take hunting and fishing for granted. Most of us don’t have to travel more than 30 minutes to 2 hours to hunt or fish. We generally can go whenever we want. When the pressures of our work cause stress, we can go to the woods or the lake and relax, but these kids do n’t have that opportunity.
I believe in this program so strongly that I’ve been helping raise money for them since 2002. We host the Boo Weekley Charity Golf Tournament at the Brewton Country Club in Brewton, Alabama, every year. I think the tournament is scheduled for August 17 and 18, 2008. The first year of the tournament, we raised $7,000. Last year, we raised over $30,000 for Camp Compass. This year, we’re flying three kids from Camp Compass to the tournament, and then we’re taking those kids and Annoni deep-sea fishing in the Gulf of Mexico. The first time we brought kids down from Camp Compass, we had a young man, who was a senior from high school, who’d never seen salt water. He’d seen concrete ponds and municipal lakes but never had been on a boat. When we took him on a boat in the Gulf of Mexico, big tears welled-up in his eyes. He cried because he was so excited. Being able to give a young person the opportunity to do something they’ve never done before and may never do again makes me feel good. I wish more people would get involved with programs like Camp Compass.
For more information on Camp Compass, go to www.campcompass.org.
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