Boo Weekley, 34, has become one of the PGA Tour's most popular and refreshing players with his simple country charm and style, and a philosophy that doesn't fit the stereotype of professional golfers. After winning the Verizon Heritage at Hilton Head Island, S.C., the week after the 2007 Masters Tournament, he was the first player to receive an automatic invitation to Augusta National under the reinstated qualification for tour winners. The native of East Milton, Fla., is sharing his thoughts of his Masters debut with The Augusta Chronicle in a daily diary.

Boo Weekley waves his putter in frustration after missing a par putt on No. 7. Weekley said he bogeyed No. 17 because he relaxed too much. (Jackie Ricciardi/Staff)

(Weekley shot an even-par 72 for the first round, including an eagle on No. 13, birdies on Nos. 2 and 15, and bogeys on Nos. 1, 7, 9 and 17.)

(The first round) was all right. We hit a lot of good shots. We hit a lot of bad ones, too. We hit some bad putts out there. Overall, I'm really happy with how I played.

We got lucky there (at No. 13). I hit a drive and kind of pushed it a little bit into the hillside. There was a sprinkler head behind my ball. I got relief and got it back down into the fairway. I dropped it. I had perfect yardage and hit a 5-iron right up there about 15, 20 feet right at the hole. I got a good read off Sean (O'Hair). Sean had about the same line as I did with about 25-30 feet. I just followed his line but hit it a little less deep.

(Just missing an eagle putt at par-5 No. 15) didn't frustrate me. I actually just pushed that putt a little bit. I thought it was a par-4, to tell you the truth. I didn't know it was a par-5.

It's a major. The whole goal is to keep it in front of you. A lot of pars don't hurt you. I don't know what all the scores are, but I can see that pars ain't going to hurt you. In any major I've played in so far, that's my goal: to go out and play golf and just treat it as another tournament.

(Asked about an eagle on Amen corner): What's Amen Corner? Why is that a corner? It should be 12, 13 and 14, shouldn't it? There you go. You got me.

You block all that out (applause coming from other holes). As long as it ain't no roar or nothing. You're going to hear it all day out here. It's pretty crowded.

I'm not going to do anything special tonight. I'm just going to go home and cook some pork chops. I don't know if I'll do the cooking. It all depends on my brother-in-law. He cooked the hamburgers last night, so I might be stuck with the pork chops. I'm a meat-and-tater man. I ain't much on them vegetables.

I enjoy playing this course. The greens are just difficult to me. The layout is great. Some holes are stretched a little bit. You've got to be focused all the way around this whole golf course. You can't relax like I did on 17. I relaxed a little bit trying to hit a shot instead of just focusing on the center of the greens, which is my game plan. I kind of got a little careless there and made bogey.

It's just a bad place to get above the hole so you're down green. You try to make bogeys best you can to get out of there.

You can't believe (what playing in front of family and friends means to me). You're standing out there; I'm standing in here. It's unreal, seriously.

(Trevor Immelman, O'Hair and I) played our own games. Trevor played real solid today (4-under 68). He could have easily shot 7-under. Easily. Actually, he could have probably shot better than that. He hit it solid today.