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SONY OPEN IN HAWAIIJanuary 14, 2015Jimmy WalkerHONOLULU, HAWAII JOHN BUSH: We'd like to welcome Jimmy Walker into the interview room. He's making his ninth start at the Sony Open in Hawai'i, coming off of a win last year. If we can just get your comments on being back here. JIMMY WALKER: It's exactly that. The golf course is in great shape. It's very green, probably the greenest I've seen it in a while. Looks like they've gotten lots of rain. The rough is up a little bit. But the greens are rolling good, and it's nice to be back. JOHN BUSH: How quick are you able to put away the disappointment from Monday and get focused on this week? JIMMY WALKER: Amy and I talked about it a little bit this week. It's still there, but it's just part of being a golfer. It's putting a bad day behind you, and it wasn't a bad day. I played good. But a bad‑‑ it didn't work out the way we wanted to. But I didn't play very good. I woke up about 12:30 on Tuesday morning and was up for a couple hours kind of stewing over it, and then finally went back to sleep, and I've been good since. Q. Who brought it up today? JIMMY WALKER: We both kind of started talking about it, and it was pretty mutual, just kind of talked about what happened, if we would have done anything different, that sort of thing. Q. Would you have? JIMMY WALKER: I don't think we would have. I didn't know until after the fact, like an hour and a half after, what Patrick did on that two‑, three‑hole stretch. I didn't even think honestly that he was‑‑ I don't think it was any kind of a factor. I thought Jason got a 20 and stay out in front, stay in front of Hideki, which is what we were doing, I was hitting fairways, percentage shots into the greens, that kind of thing, and just wham, bam, there it was. Q. (Inaudible.) JIMMY WALKER: That's what I heard. I didn't watch it. Yeah, it's whatever. But I was doing what I thought I needed to do, and even talking to Butch, he was like, I think he was texting my wife with about four holes to go, and he said, four fairways, four greens, and we're home. That's what we did. I knew what I had to do on the last hole, and I didn't do it. Q. When you said you sat up for a couple hours and dealt with it, what's the process for you? Do you go back through the round or do you‑‑ what do you do? JIMMY WALKER: I think it's a lot of things that go through your head. It was more of I couldn't go back to sleep. You're trying not to think about it, but that's what's pressing on your mind. I'm sure it's like when you have a bad day anywhere for anybody; you have a bad day and you wake up and you start thinking about it, your brain turns on, and that's kind of what happened to me the other night, and it can happen on good days, too. It can happen on good days. You have a really good day and you wake up and you're still kind of amped up about what you did the day before. Just kind of the way it goes out here. Q. When was the last time that happened? JIMMY WALKER: I think one of the‑‑ a couple of the early nights at the Ryder Cup I was up a little bit during the night kind of thinking about it and excited and that type of thing. It wasn't nervous or anything, I was just‑‑ it was fun to be there and new environment and what we were going to go do the next day, that type of thing. I remember sleeping fine the night after Saturday going into Sunday. I remember sleeping really good. There's days‑‑ I can't recall, but I remember a couple nights there where I'm so hot sleeping in the middle of the night, that kind of thing, but I think we all‑‑ I think we all do that. I usually sleep pretty good. It's never been a problem. Q. Was there a place that after having a few weeks off that you jump right back into a place that you've had success? JIMMY WALKER: Yeah, I think anywhere that you've had success and you feel good and you show up and you're in a good mood and you're excited to play. It would be worse if you want to a place where you don't have good thoughts and feelings and you're not excited to be there. But I didn't have any real downtime between Monday and today and tomorrow. But I feel good. I'm playing good, hitting it good, ready to go. Q. Does the short week help you or hurt you in that regard? JIMMY WALKER: I think it‑‑ I don't know. I think you can look at it two ways: You don't have a whole lot of time to think about the next tournament and rebooting. I think it just depends on what kind of person you are as to how it affects you. I feel fine. Q. It's kind of funny the conversations of a funeral nature at the defending champion's press conference, isn't it? JIMMY WALKER: It's all right. It's a good problem to have. I mean, we're talking about something that's very positive that happened. It didn't turn out the way I wanted to in my favor, but it's always‑‑ you come off a little break and you always wonder how sharp is everything going to be, and I know somebody has asked that question about guys being off for three months as opposed to now it seems like almost everybody kind of plays through. You're always anxious, how is it going to go, what's going to happen. I remember being anxious when I showed up there because it had been a while. I'd go to Park City, go to the mountains and hang out for 10 days and not touch a club. Sometimes that's what you need is just to get away and everything kind of chill out, rest, and get back and you're ready to go. I got out here early. The weather at home has been kind of bad. I got out to Maui like the Friday before the tournament and grabbed a golf cart and just started hitting shots, running around hitting different shots in the wind. It was great, you could play in two hours and I think it was a great way to start it off, get out here early and hit a bunch of different shots because that's what you need to do at Kapalua because it's not so much of a golf swing golf course because the wind is always blowing so much, you're always hitting all these crazy little shots. That's how I feel you play that golf course. Q. The positives coming out of there, obviously not winning, but you must feel pretty good about it being so early in the season and get a lot of shots and have a pretty good lead going into the final round. JIMMY WALKER: Yeah, I didn't have a lead‑‑ I was tied for the lead, but I felt good. In 54 holes I made one bogey. That's just not my game, and I understand and admit that. It's not a big deal. But two bogeys in 72 holes for me is pretty awesome. Hey, it's awesome for everybody. I played good, hit it good. 21‑under for four days, I don't know if I've gone any lower than that on TOUR. I'm not sure. But it was a great week. I think I learned a lot. I know it's such a cliché to say that kind of crap, but I feel like I learned some stuff. You've got to. You've got to at least try to take something away from it instead of just kicking the dirt. Q. That being said, what did you take away from it? JIMMY WALKER: I think it's recognizing when you're really playing well and when you might be able to try to widen the gap instead of playing percentage shots. But Amy and I talked about that. I don't think we would have done much different. I was still hitting the kind of quality shots. Could I have tried to sneak them in there about five or ten feet closer? Probably yeah. The only thing we would have probably taken back was we had gone for 14 every day, but at that point in the day I just hit 4‑iron off the last tee and it felt good, and I was just throwing in my wedges all week, and I was just thinking, fairway, knock it on the green, have a good look. I was thinking birdie there, even though I was laying up. So that was it. I hit driver the day before and struggled to make par. But yeah, that's what we were going for. If you'd have done anything different maybe then, but you can't sit here and keep second‑guessing yourself. You just kind of go back and look at what happened, and we talked about every shot we hit on the back nine today, and everything was good. Q. It might be when you're playing well it doesn't really matter what course you're playing kind of thing, but the courses between last week and this week are so different, I'm curious the things you did well last week, how they would translate here if that makes sense. JIMMY WALKER: Obviously I know this is one of the harder weeks on TOUR to hit fairways, I think, is what this statistically comes down to. I always joke with my buddies that that plays into my hands because I don't hit any fairways anyway. But it is nice to be in the fairway here. I remember I did drive it well here last year. I drove it really well, and that helps you set up to attack some of these greens and attack the pins. The greens are small. I mean, they're tiny compared to last week. Fairways are tiny. It's a much smaller course, but it does still play long. We were hitting a lot longer mid irons today with no wind, and it's just a fraction soft. But you've still got to hit really good second shots. Driving it good here is nice because the rough is up and greens are small and you don't want to be catching fliers into these greens and then you've got tough chip shots. I think it's kind of get it in the fairway, get it on the green and get some putts to go in. It seems like you always go about 4‑under a day out here or 5‑under, that usually gets you right where you want to be. Q. (Inaudible.) Is that what you wanted? JIMMY WALKER: It winds out there, too. Even some of those fairways were tough to hit. It just depended on where you wanted to put it in the fairway. If you wanted to push it down like on 13 over there, you couldn't almost help but not hit it in the rough over there because the ball rolls down. I was still hitting a lot of flighted tee balls last week. I remember last year just really letting it go everywhere, and this year I played a lot more controlled tee shots, and it seemed to work out a lot better for me. Q. If you were an amateur and went to the draw party and you got the first pick, which pro would you want to play with? JIMMY WALKER: This week? I don't know. I'm not that big of a golf fan. Tough question for me. Q. (Inaudible.) JIMMY WALKER: That I don't like golf courses? Q. Unless you're playing a professional event, that you don't really like to go places and go play. JIMMY WALKER: That's different. On a week off I want to go home. I'd rather go home and play golf with my buddies and be at home. We travel so much. People go, have you played Bandon Dunes. I'm like, no I haven't played Bandon Dunes. Why haven't you played Bandon Dunes? Well, I'm not going to go fly to Oregon to play golf on my weekend off. It's not going to happen. Q. Who would you pick in the pro‑am party? JIMMY WALKER: I don't know. Q. After the Ryder Cup experience, how excited and interested are you in being on the Presidents Cup team this year? JIMMY WALKER: I am very excited. I would love to be able to play. I've never been to Korea. I would think it would be kind of a red carpet deal over there. I'd definitely like to be a part of that. I think you get some of the guys on the team that we had at Ryder Cup, I had a great time with all of them, and I know there's a lot of other guys that are really playing well that would be on the team. Some guys might not. It's still super early. But definitely like to go. The thought of making the Olympic team, they don't take many guys from this country, but that would be super cool, I mean, not so much for the fact to go play golf for an Olympic gold medal, but just to be there and be part of and to experience it. It's something we've all watched, and to be able to have that be a part of your sport, that's going to be hard to make the team. You're going to have to really play well. Q. Would you be more excited about the Presidents Cup if it was at Bandon Dunes? JIMMY WALKER: Yeah, I guess. I don't know. I hear it's awesome, Alex. Q. Is there a story behind the putter you're using? JIMMY WALKER: Well, I had it at the house, and over the last like six, seven, eight years, putters have just continually gotten heavier and heavier. Swing weights have gotten heavier, and you just tend to get used to hitting a heavier putter, and every time I go home and I look at that putter, I'm like, gosh, it looks good, and I'd say, I'd love to get it back out in action because I putted with it in 2002, 2003, 2004 and 2005, and I had that really good year with it in '03 and '04 on the Web.com TOUR, and every time I go home and look at it, it's like, but it's just too light, I just can't get into it, and I don't want to put lead tape on it because that's a disgrace; I can't do that to a putter. I talked to Kelly out here with Scottie, and he said, look, take it back, we'll put some tungsten inserts in the bottom of it, weight it up, get it right, refinish it, and they did. They got it back to me, and it just looks awesome. I started rolling it when I got back from Shark Shootout, and it's good. I like it. And it looks good. I like it. Q. There's a guy, a player that got suspended today for a year from the PGA TOUR for using performance enhancing drugs, a situation where he took something that supposedly was because of an injury that he was trying to get back sooner. Can you understand how that can happen to a guy on the Web.com, he's just trying to find a way to keep his card and trying to find a way to get out here and that he might take something just to get back out and be able to play golf? JIMMY WALKER: I can understand anybody doing that in any sport. It's so competitive, especially with golf. There's really no safeguards on your job sometimes year to year. It's tough. There's no five‑year contracts. It's get back or go back kind of a thing. So it's tough. I mean, I don't‑‑ I haven't really had anything do anything like that out here I don't think. You don't know, but yeah, I can see it. I can see it in all sports. You can see it with the whole baseball deal, or if one guy is doing it in cycling, one guy is doing it, everybody is doing it, because if you're not doing it, you're getting smoked. Q. I know they're different courses but having played so well your first two events in Hawai'i, do you feel something specifically comfortable about playing here? JIMMY WALKER: I don't know, it just such a pretty place. It puts me in a good mood. I know my family, when we come, everybody is smiling, we're having fun, and this tournament is kind of weird for me because this is where I got hurt‑‑ I hurt my neck so many years ago here, and I always liked the place, and I didn't want to let it sort of leave a bitter taste in my mouth. It was nice to come back, and I've played well here in the past, and to win it last year was just really cool. I remember thinking, this is where my career kind of took a downturn for the worse and then it was kind of a spark of rejuvenation‑‑ not rejuvenation but a progression of climbing back up the ladder. Q. Where were you? JIMMY WALKER: I was on the range and I took one swing and it felt like somebody jammed an ice pick in my neck. I go get an MRI and I had a disk bulge and I couldn't move my neck for a week and it took a long time for it to release and let go. Kind of dealt with that for a long time, and then I found a trainer, Mark Wall, who's been traveling out here for the last five years with me, and he keeps my body, neck, shoulders, everything, nice and calm and loosened up so I don't, knock on wood, have any more layoffs. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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