|
|||
|
|||
|
 |
|
|
SHELL HOUSTON OPENMarch 27, 2007Boo WeekleyHUMBLE, TEXAS JOEL SCHUCHMANN: Boo Weekley, thanks for joining us here at the Shell Houston Open. You had a chance to play a practice round today. Maybe some opening comments about the golf course and how it played. BOO WEEKLEY: The golf course is good right now. The wind is pretty brutal out there on a couple holes. It's a good of course. First time being here. I can see where greens probably going to get a little firmer and faster with the wind. JOEL SCHUCHMANN: As far as your season, only a third or so of the way through, but you got two Top-10s and had a strong finish at the Arnold Palmer Invitational a couple weeks back. Tied for 14th on a difficult golf course. State of your game seems real good. BOO WEEKLEY: We're driving the ball real well right now. To me that's always been the key to my game is when I'm driving the ball good and Cleveland has built that new Hi Bore driver. We've been tinkering around with that, with the Aldila shaft and Hi Bore driver. JOEL SCHUCHMANN: We'll take some questions now. Q. Boo, you've had kind of an eventful last month here, you've had -- put yourself in position to win once, you've -- you had kind of suffered a penalty that nobody ever heard of before. Kind of wondering if you kind of sum up what this month has been like. BOO WEEKLEY: It's been a good month. When you're playing as well as you play and made as much money as we have, it's been one hell of a month. I'd like to have another stretch like that, you know, coming up. Maybe I'll be able to take a couple weeks off and go do some fishing. Q. Is that your passion right now, off the course, fishing? BOO WEEKLEY: Yes, ma'am. As hot as it is. You can't do no deer hunting unless you want to fight with the mosquitoes or something. It ain't deer season. You get in trouble for that. Yeah, I like to go find a place where I can go do me some good fishing right now. Q. You fought with the alligators? BOO WEEKLEY: No. We ran into a few last week when we was home, I seen a few but I didn't fight with none of them. Q. Now, is all this, the success this year, are you buying yourself a new boat or anything, doing anything like that? BOO WEEKLEY: No, ma'am. I'm going to put my money up right now. You never know what tomorrow is going to bring you. You kind of -- I just live day-to-day and right now I'm just living day-to-day, you know, hoping that, you know, just keep playing as well as I'm playing and with the boat and everything else, that comes a little later. Q. Can you kind of walk us through the finish at PGA National, you had a chance to win it, how you felt in the aftermath? BOO WEEKLEY: Are you talking about when I got through with the tournament or talking about -- Q. Well, dealing with what happened Sunday and kind of the aftermath of coming so close. Did you come away from that down because you had a chance to win or did you come away feeling good that you put yourself -- BOO WEEKLEY: Felt pretty good when I was out there playing. Go back and say starting on 17. I felt like we had to made a birdie to win. We birdied 17. I got on 18. I didn't know I honestly had the lead, you know. I knew I had Mark by one. I got to 18. I thought I hit a pretty decent third shot and then I just -- kind of the nerves got me and then, you know, went to play the playoff and I hit it to a perfect yardage there coming in on my third shot into the par 5 and I just didn't quite catch it as solid as I wanted, you know, spun back down into the bunker and got it up and down. That night I had to say I was probably the most impressed out of everything I've accomplished in golf, you know, because I knew I had a chance to win my first PGA Tour event but the next day when I woke up, you know, we went out and just teed it up and tried to play the best we could play. You know, it didn't happen. Wasn't my first win. It's just a matter of time that I will win, you know, because I know with my heart, you know, I know I'm a good enough player. If I just get the putter to stay rolling, we'll have a chance. Q. I saw where you said your first go 'round on the Tour you kind of felt like a minnow thrown into a pool of sharks. How is it different for you this time? BOO WEEKLEY: I ain't so caught up in the hoopla. The first year out y'all kind of chase us around because I was a different person, you know, I wore tennis shoes, wore rain pants, you know, and I had boots. It's not your common golfer, but I was kind of caught up in all that, you know, and just all the people that I've watched on TV, which I'm not a big fan of watching golf anyway, puts me to sleep, but -- just kind of one of those things. I got caught up in it. Now, I know they ain't no different than I am just because, you know, they've been out here longer. We just got to tee it up and we ain't playing them, I'm playing the golf course. That's what I do. I go out there now when I go to work on this golf course I go out there and study everything about it that I know I need to study and I rest a day on Wednesday and when I tee it up, I'm ready to play. Q. Were you surprised it took you four years to get back and what did you kind of -- how did you grow in those four years? BOO WEEKLEY: Nationwide Tour is an awesome tour to actually grow on. I think everybody that comes through the rankings or whatever, qualifying school, I think they ought to have to start off at the Nationwide Tour. I ain't saying everybody is ready. I know I definitely wasn't ready. But I think it's a good starting ground, you know, you learn a lot more about the golf, what you're trying to accomplish and then it's just -- that's just golf. That's just everybody plays their own way of golf, I reckon, the way they look at it in life and the way they play the game. Q. Boo, have you ever been an alternate? BOO WEEKLEY: An alternate? Yes, sir. Q. What's that life like? What's the weight like and the -- BOO WEEKLEY: The first year I was out I was an alternate a bunch and they call you up like on Tuesday night and say, "Hey, you're in the tournament." All of a sudden, you know, you got to pack up, fly out. I ain't seen the golf course, you ain't prepared. It was kind of rough the first year out. That was -- lot of it was getting a caught up in that, too, you know, flying around. You ain't used to flying, you're driving everywhere on the mini tours. Q. How do you keep your mind sharp when you're an alternate because I'm sure you're at the site, you're at the site as an alternate. You got half your mind on playing that course, half your mind on what you need to do if you don't make it. BOO WEEKLEY: If you get in, you get in. I reckon it's just -- I've had to have been the first alternate one time on the Nationwide Tour event and I ended up not getting in, you know, and so I just loaded up, I was driving at the time, had my vehicle. I just drove right around there to the corner where I knew some people had fishing ponds and I just went fishing that day, seriously. It just happened to be lucky that I knew some people that lived around that area there and I went fishing. It was in Springfield, Missouri. Q. The lake? BOO WEEKLEY: Yes, sir on the lake right there. Q. Since you have been an alternate more than once, do you have like a favorite or maybe that was it, favorite all -- BOO WEEKLEY: That was probably my favorite one. Q. What kind of reaction did you get after the Bay Hill episode where you're trying to help a guy and you ended up with a two shot penalty. BOO WEEKLEY: You know, I reckon the way y'all put it in the papers made me look like I was a good guy trying to help somebody out. That is true, I am a good person. I just -- I just did it out of instinct. It wasn't that -- I was trying to help him but it was just -- I was just trying to do it to help somebody but at the same time I just -- it was just out of instinct, you know. It happened. I learned. It was kind of -- it kind of set -- actually to me it kind of set the tone for the next day. I feel like I had to make up so much ground, you know, because I felt like I was -- I was hitting it good enough that I felt like I could have either won it or be in the top two. JOEL SCHUCHMANN: You shot 69 that day. BOO WEEKLEY: Right, I still shot 1-under. Q. You haven't by chance taken the trouble to figure out how much the two shots cost you? BOO WEEKLEY: You can't live in the past. You can't worry about that. That's over with now. All we can do is look out here. We're at this golf course here. Let's go play this one here now. Q. What do you think of the setup, short rough and that kind of stuff? BOO WEEKLEY: If the wind blows like it always does in Texas, it's still going to be a good golf course, good tournament. I think the greens are going to get firm. I mean, you know, some of the guys I played with today in the practice round, they said they do get firm out here and I think with the short rough -- that short rough is still kind of hard to hit out of because the ball is nestled down in it. It -- it ain't going to get all the way to the bottom but it's low enough to where you ain't having -- you're not being able to get the full club on the ball. Q. You were talking at the start how it's kind of a matter if you get your putter rolling, good things will happen. How many different kinds of things, approaches have you tried with your putting because people always marvel at your ball striking and give yourself a lot of chances. How many different approaches have you tried to putting and what's the most drastic things you've tried to do? BOO WEEKLEY: I think the most drastic thing went to a long putter. To me that was the most drastic. I've always been used to putting with a short putter. I went back to the short putter. Now just focused on make the three and 4-footers. That's where you got to practice the most at for me because that's where I've always been not a real good solid putter, five foot and in. I felt like I worked, starting last year I really worked real hard at it and got healthy last year and I'm health they right now. I'm back out here for sure and the main thing is stay focused on my putting because I mean fortunately my ball striking stays there. If my putting comes along with my ball striking, I know I'm going to do fine. Q. So for those of us who live in the real world, who never stand over a putt where you can make -- a million dollars riding on making a putt, what goes through the mind when you're standing with a chance to win for the first time on Tour and you have a three foot putt? BOO WEEKLEY: My whole thought is roll it. I had a perfect line. That's all I was worried about was my line. I picked a spot right in front of the hole and that was all I was concentrating on when I took my practice strokes and when I stood over it. You know, I just -- I had so much adrenaline running through me. It's hard to explain, I reckon, be like a horse getting shot up and ready to go run a race or a greyhound, you know, they give him some things and let him run. It was a lot of fun and, you know, unfortunately I didn't make it, you know. I just hit it a little too hard but I was making sure I hit an aggressive putt. I didn't want to lag it. Q. Did the experience of that week, did that raise questions to you in terms of being able to win or did it answer questions to you about having the ability to do that? BOO WEEKLEY: No. I know I'm to going win. It's just a matter of time. I'm going to win, I believe, in my heart. Whether you do or not, I believe it in my heart. It just makes me a stronger person the way I look at it with golf, you know. Standing there and take the criticism. You 3-putted the last hole to win your first event. How many people you look back in the past, how many people that are decent putters that have missed short putts to win something or to get into something? I mean, you know, it just happens. It's golf, man. There ain't nobody perfect at this game. If they were, they would win every time they teed it up. Q. You say you know you're going to win, it's just air matter of time. What gives you that kind of confidence? BOO WEEKLEY: I know I will. It's just a matter of time for me. Q. Have you always been that confident in yourself or is that from -- is that something you especially built up last three, four years? BOO WEEKLEY: I built it up last year. I think it started last year. I finished second last year in an event where I had the lead and bogeyed the last hole again, you know, to lose it. But I put myself into place -- it's going to happen. I can't be just doing what I'm doing and just keep falling off to the side there in second. Sooner or later it's going to happen. I mean as long as you keep putting -- you put yourself there enough times it's going to happen. I don't care who you are. Do you deer hunt any? Q. I don't deer hunt. BOO WEEKLEY: You bird hunt or anything? You go out and go bird hunting and see the birds flying around. The next thing you know you can't hit one of the birds. All of a sudden you hit one. What do you do? You build confidence. You go from there. Same with this deer hunting. I missed some of the deer in my life with a rifle and scope. It's just adrenaline. I relate all that to my golfing. It's all -- it all happens for a reason. You know, good things are going to happen as long as you believe they're going to happen. Q. Which one brings you more joy? BOO WEEKLEY: All of them. I can tell you golf don't. Golf is aggravating, very aggravating. Q. Hunting and fishing doesn't aggravate you? BOO WEEKLEY: I get just as mad at the hunting and fishing. I take it serious when I get out there, you know. Unfortunately, I can't make enough money at that hunting and fishing as we can on this golf course. If I could, I sure wouldn't be sitting right here with y'all right now. JOEL SCHUCHMANN: Anything else? Boo, thanks. BOO WEEKLEY: You're very welcome. Thank y'all. End of FastScripts |
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
About ASAP Sports •
FastScripts Archive •
Recent Interviews •
Captioning •
Upcoming Events •
Contact Us
FastScripts | Events Covered | Our Clients | Other Services | ASAP in the News | Site Map | Job Opportunities | Links |
|
ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297
|