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VALERO TEXAS OPENMarch 24, 2015Jimmy WalkerSAN ANTONIO, TEXAS DOUG MILNE: Jimmy Walker, thanks for joining us for a few minutes here at the Valero Texas Open, obviously a special event for you, being back home. Off to a great start this year. We've used your name quite a few times as player to barely miss the playoff, playing one week, come back the following week and win, the Sony Open. So with all that just comments on being back here at the TPC San Antonio. JIMMY WALKER: It's definitely nice to be home. I was off the last two weeks. And this will be three weeks at home, which is rare if you're trying to play golf. It was nice the schedule worked out that way. I was able to come out and practice a little bit the last week and a half, two weeks, and the golf course is in great shape and I think the guys will be real happy. DOUG MILNE: What does a week do for you as far as your preparation? You've got friends and so forth. Are you able to kind of keep the course, so to speak, and play your game? JIMMY WALKER: Yeah, it's definitely more of a juggling act, I think, if you're at home, because everybody wants to see you, they want to come out and you get requests for a lot of things. So just a matter of trying to keep it all balanced and we've been doing a good job. It's definitely nice to be home. It does feel more relaxed. Q. I'm sure you'd like to win this tournament, your home tournament. Is there anymore‑‑ is it harder to win at home? Do you feel you get a little tighter or feel more pressure or just hasn't worked out in the past? JIMMY WALKER: Definitely don't feel any tighter. But it's hard to win any week, let alone your home week, so I don't think you can really put it in perspective like that. But it would definitely be a lot of fun, it would be fun to hear the cheers from the crowd, being from here, and having a chance to win on Sunday. I think it would be a good experience. It would be something‑‑ something I'm trying to do. We'll see how it goes. Q. Your home club, you played an event that you look forward to. Talk about that and also did you use that as sort of to try out new equipment, leading into this week, and the Masters, and is it also something that you really felt you needed to recharge the batteries and get everything ready for the first major of the year? JIMMY WALKER: I did feel like I needed a slight recharge of the batteries, after the West Coast and playing Doral. I played really good. So I used the last two weeks to rest and then start to prepare and I played our club matches last year, and it sure was a lot of fun. And I was excited to play it again this year. We had a blast and we had‑‑ our team finally won, took I think it was eight years in row the other team won every year, for eight years they won, and we finally beat them this year. It was fun. I played some good players and I gave a lot of shots, so it kept my head in the game and I wanted to win. I got three points for our team, so that was good. Q. With this being your home course, have people on the Tour asked you what it's like here, what San Antonio is like, what to do in San Antonio? JIMMY WALKER: Not too much on the golf course. I get a lot of restaurant requests, where do you like to go, what do you like to do. And living out in Boerne, we don't come into San Antonio a ton. But we've got our spots we like to hit. We tell, everybody likes to go down to the river walk, and we have a couple of spots we like to go. So just kind of pass along that information. Everybody out here is pretty good at figuring out golf courses, so there's not a lot of‑‑ not a bunch I can add to anybody's base. Q. Are you going to stay the night here or commute every day? JIMMY WALKER: Oh, I've got to commute every day. I've got a fun car, so it's not a bad drive. Q. Is there anything in particular you're working on, getting ready for Augusta to get a chance to I play out there? JIMMY WALKER: I'm actually going to go Monday and Tuesday next week. I'm looking forward to going there. I played there about a month and a half, two months ago, it was in great shape there. I think it was already tournament‑ready. We had a great coverage on the ground, the greens were fast. Even the guys in the pro shop said they could host it, they felt like it could. It was in great shape. And I'm looking forward to going back and getting more fine tuning before the tournament. And that's always fun to go play. Q. Anything in particular now, any shots or anything that you'd like to be able to have tournament ready when‑‑ JIMMY WALKER: I think playing Augusta requires‑‑ I think you have to have really good control of your golf ball. You have to be able to work it both ways, cuts, draws, soft fades, soft draws, because Augusta likes you to hit golf shots into greens that the fairway doesn't want you to hit. Fairway wants you to hit a low draw, but you've got to hit a high cut. The fairway wants you to hid a hard fade and you have to hit a high draw. You have to be working it both ways a little bit. I think that's one of the keys to playing well there, and putting is big. Q. What are some of the keys to playing well here? JIMMY WALKER: I think the keys to playing well here are hitting fairways, because the greens have been pretty firm. They're definitely not going to be receptive if you're coming in from out of the rough. The wind can blow here, especially on the top of the hill. You definitely want to be in the fairway so you can control your golfball, I think that's one of the big keys this week. Q. Course in good shape? JIMMY WALKER: The course is in great shape. Walk out and look at it, not a blemish on it. Q. I don't know the Amateur who is playing here, who is the top‑rated amateur, Sam Burns. I don't know if you know anything about him or have you ever met the kid at all? JIMMY WALKER: I don't. I've never met him. And that's‑‑ I've never met him. So it's cool that you've got new guys coming out. And I see that every year. I don't know how old he is or where he's at in his golf, but it's a good deal. Q. One other thing, where is your game right now? Are you happy with it? JIMMY WALKER: You're always interested coming off of a break. I feel good. I've been playing pretty good at home. So I'm looking forward to the week. It's like starting out in Hawaii after a month and a half off, you're nervous, you don't know where it's going to be, where it's going to go. But I've been off a couple of weeks. It will be two and a half weeks, almost three weeks since I played any tournament golf. I feel good. I feel like I'm prepared. Q. How good of a job do you think this community has done as far as embracing this kind of PGA tournament? JIMMY WALKER: I've been coming to the Valero Texas Open ever since I was a kid. And you can see the support from the people of San Antonio. It seems like we've got the Spurs and it's packed every night. And it's rabid. It would be great to have a lot of local support this week. Have everybody come out. I know it's nice to have an outdoor event, if the weather is good, it always draws people out. I've enjoyed coming to this tournament for a long time. It's cool to be playing in it now. Q. Since you're back home you're going to be court side tomorrow for Thunder/Spurs, right? JIMMY WALKER: I haven't gotten any offers for pictures. So if I wanted any tickets. But court side is tough to get. I don't go looking for those. But it's a workweek. It's a long way to get to a game from where I live. It makes for a long fight. We'll definitely be watching on TV. Q. What was it like filming that commercial with Christy yesterday? JIMMY WALKER: It was actually‑‑ it was very cool. I've never really been involved in doing a full production commercial shoot like that before or been kind of the center and talking and walking. I've never done anything like that. So time will tell if it's any good. I had a blast working with all you guys. The kids were great. The coaches out there were great. Hats off to the staff out there at first tee and hats off to the production crew. I thought it all went off really well. Q. And in addition, what would it mean for a win here this week? JIMMY WALKER: A win here this week? It would mean a lot. I live here. I've got lots of friends, lots of family. I know that they would all be there. It would be fun to have everybody run out and start popping champagne. I think it would be fun. Why not? Q. Growing up did you have any organizations, like the first tee, that helped you out? JIMMY WALKER: You know, I really didn't. First Tee was‑‑ came after I was a junior golfer. I really relied on my dad's and parents and friends, Really friends of my dad. I played in the South Texas PGA when I was a kid. That was one of the organizations I really played in. Not nothing too specific like we have now. The First Tee is really amazing and what they do across the whole country for kids getting into golf, it's really cool. We just really didn't have anything like that. So it's really brought more kids into golf that wouldn't have an opportunity to do it. Q. What would you say to kids who want to play golf? JIMMY WALKER: I say if you want to play golf you've got to‑‑ it's a lot of fun, if you want to be really good at it it's a lot of hard work. And I think it will really help teach you life skills and how to be a good person. And I think that's what golf really embodies is doing the right thing. Q. Did you play much on the national level as an amateur? JIMMY WALKER: Yeah, I played in some of the big stuff. I played in the U.S. Am, Public Links, that type of thing. Played in the American Junior Golf Association in my teen years and then stepped into college golf. Didn't play an aggressive amateur schedule. It's expensive to go do that. We just didn't quite have all the funds. We just kind of picked and chose‑‑ a lot of kids played a lot. It was a full Tour schedule‑ish kind of a thing. We just picked and chose what we played in. It was great. DOUG MILNE: Jimmy, we appreciate your time, as always. Best of luck this week. JIMMY WALKER: Thank you. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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