Weir's wins earn DesNews award

He's twice been named Canadian Male Athlete of the Year. So it's unlikely Mike Weir will get too excited about his latest honor. Of course, there aren't many things that faze the unflappable, low-key Weir.

Weir has been selected as Deseret News Athlete of the Month for February, a month in which he won two tournaments on the PGA Tour and pocketed a cool $1.9 million. That's not including the $500,000 bonus he received for winning the West Coast Swing, which included tournaments over the first two months of the year.

Most golfers don't win two tournaments in a career, not to mention 2 million bucks as Weir did in a single month.

For those who don't know by now, Weir makes his home in Utah and has for several years. He may be one of Canada's most popular athletes, right up there with Wayne Gretzky, Steve Nash and Larry Walker, but Weir has chosen to reside in Utah. He and his wife, Bricia, both attended BYU more than a decade ago and enjoy living with their two daughters in Draper, where they have a chance to enjoy Utah's winter sports scene.

Weir often skis Utah's slopes, and earlier this month took some time off to go skiing in Jackson Hole, Wyo. As a Canadian, he enjoys watching hockey games and spent a lot of time at last year's Winter Olympics watching the Canadians win the gold medal.

He also likes the relative anonymity he enjoys in Utah where he looks like your average 5-9, 155-pound neighbor as he goes about his daily business when he's in town.

In Canada, it's a different story, where the 32-year-old left-hander is a national treasure as evidenced by the scores of Canadian reporters who follow him each week on the PGA Tour and record his every move.

"He has been on the front page of the national newspapers this winter, and he's regularly on the front of all the sports sections," Craig Sharp, managing director of marketing and communications for the Royal Canadian Golf Association told the South Florida Sun-Sentinel. "That's pretty extraordinary when you consider it's still hockey season."

Lorne Rubenstein, the national golf writer for The Globe and Mail in Toronto, said he's averaging a column a week about Weir.

"I've had people tell me they won't watch a golf tournament if he's not playing," Rubenstein said. "The appetite for Mike Weir is unbelievable."