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VERIZON HERITAGE

April 15, 2008

Boo Weekley

HILTON HEAD, SOUTH CAROLINA

JOHN BUSH: We'd like to welcome our defending champion of the Verizon Heritage, Boo Weekley. Thanks for coming by and spending a few minutes with us.
BOO WEEKLEY: Thank you.
JOHN BUSH: This is new for you, defending a tournament on the PGA TOUR. Just talk a little bit about your preparation for the week.
BOO WEEKLEY: I'm just going to go out there and just do my normal and just practice with my middle irons, work on the greens a little bit, especially coming back from Augusta. They're a little quicker over there and you've got to focus a little bit on the grain here.
JOHN BUSH: Let's look back at last year, obviously a memorable week for you. Just reflect back on getting your first PGA TOUR win.
BOO WEEKLEY: I played the back side today, just nine holes, and we got around there to 16, 17 and 18, and of course I went around there and had to try them chip shots. There wasn't no way (laughter). I still don't see how that went in. But it was very memorable.
To this day when I teed it up, I was still thinking, all right, here we are again, right back where we started from. With it being my first win, it's a great place to come back to, you know?

Q. How was hitting the ceremonial tee shot?
BOO WEEKLEY: It was neat. Luckily I got to come back -- I think it might have been for the media day, sponsor day, something like that, and I got to go out there and watch when we fired it off. The first time, they were doing like a practice round with me I reckon. I'm kind of glad I went there earlier this week and listened to it because it was real loud.

Q. Talk a little bit about what you experienced at Augusta, particularly on the greens. You putted pretty well, even though it's not necessarily the strongest part of your game, but did you walk away from there feeling pretty good about the week?
BOO WEEKLEY: Well, I ain't going to say I figured them out, but I will say they slowed down a little bit with that rain we got on the greens. They slowed down a little bit, and I think that's the reason why you saw a lot of the scores that a lot more people shot under par was because of the greens being a little slower. You had to take full advantage of that with the greens being softer and slower like that because you could hit it closer and spin it a little more and keep it closer to the hole.

Q. Talk about having a good finish at Augusta and then carrying that in here.
BOO WEEKLEY: I think after last week, luckily I got hockey sticks the last day, but I take that as a bonus, to finish in the top 20 in a major for the first time actually going and seeing Augusta and learning a little bit about the character of the golf course and then coming here. I feel like if I can putt halfway decent on them greens, when I get here maybe I can carry that over and putt a little better here this week.

Q. After winning and being labeled a category 1 player, just talk about getting better tee times and how that benefits you.
BOO WEEKLEY: It'll benefit you a little bit, and at the same time -- it benefits you early in the morning anyway because you get out there and you're the first, second, third group out and the greens ain't quite as spiked up, stepped on, meshed down. But at the same time it still has a drawback; you've got a little bit of water on the ball. When you hit it in the rough it might catch a little flier or something.
And then in the afternoons usually the wind picks up later as the day goes on anyway, and when you get the early tee times like that, it can help out.

Q. Can you talk about the hours of preparation going into the Masters for the first time at Augusta and then coming here as defending champion and the neat spot that you were in and how that kind of balances out?
BOO WEEKLEY: Well, I mean, it's just each week. It's just another golf tournament. That's the way I stay focused is just to tell myself, hey, it don't matter if it's a major or what it is, it's just another golf tournament, and go and do my same preparation, see the golf course, see the greens and focus on hitting the fairways, focus on the greens and focus on getting it in the hole. That's the way I've got to keep it balanced. You can't look ahead. That ain't going to get you nowhere, looking ahead.

Q. Last week top 16 get automatic exemptions back into the Masters. Was that a disappointment, losing a couple strokes there?
BOO WEEKLEY: I mean, it was a disappointment, but at the same time, first time there. I mean, how many of us, first time place in that event made it? I don't know if you know, I don't know if you might have knew, but I think the rest of us that did play, I think that we're all happy with how we finished.

Q. With your celebrity golf, have you been asked to do any hunting and fishing shows? How many of those have you done? And if they had a professional turkey hunting Tour, would you be on it?
BOO WEEKLEY: I don't know about the professional turkey hunt. More the dear and the fishing. That turkey, I don't like chasing the chickens around. You can go get them out of the deep freezer (laughter).

Q. Have you done any of the hunting or fishing shows?
BOO WEEKLEY: I've done one. You know, I do it mostly with Mossy Oak. That's the company I'm with. I've had a few calls of doing some sports magazines and stuff like that. We've got a couple local magazines around Alabama, the southeast and stuff like that, that I've become pretty close friends with, just talking with them and just calling them up and asking them different questions about some of the articles they have in there.

Q. You seem to have a good rapport with the fans here. Any thoughts about being viewed as a champion on this TOUR?
BOO WEEKLEY: No, I mean, just signing autographs. That's a fun thing, you know? To be able to write your name down, somebody asking you for your autograph, you would have asked me that about 10, 12 years ago, I'd be like, yeah, what you want my autograph for? Am I going to jail or where am I going with this?

Q. You seem to have taken it real seriously, being the champion.
BOO WEEKLEY: Yeah, it's an honor. It's an honor to represent myself, and then plus at the same time to represent this tournament, the Verizon. It's just a great honor to me to come and be able to do the things -- come back and do the sponsor day, the media day. I mean, that's big. I didn't come to do it just for them; I come to show them I'm just as much proud to be a part of this as the next person is.

Q. I heard you say you're on the way back here.
BOO WEEKLEY: I'm pretty sure I did, sir.

Q. Did you not know that he was paying your way?
BOO WEEKLEY: I don't think we really discussed that. It really didn't matter. I would have come and done it one way or the other.

Q. Are you superstitious at all? Will you try to do anything you did last year?
BOO WEEKLEY: No, sir. I'm just going to go out and just try to hit it in that fairway and hit it on the green and we'll go from there.
JOHN BUSH: Boo, good luck this week.
BOO WEEKLEY: I appreciate it. Thank y'all.

End of FastScripts

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