	products recent interviews FastScripts archive about ASAP Sports

Our Clients:

Browse by Sport

Find us on

Subscribe to RSS

Click to go to
Asaptext.com

View our
e-Brochure

VERIZON HERITAGE

April 18, 2008

Boo Weekley

HILTON HEAD, SOUTH CAROLINA

JOHN BUSH: We'd like to welcome Boo Weekley into the interview room here at the Verizon Heritage. Boo, those bogey-free 7-under 64 are always nice.
BOO WEEKLEY: Yes, they are.
JOHN BUSH: Give us some comments on the day, if you can.
BOO WEEKLEY: Overall I hit the ball real well with my irons today. Struggled a little bit off the tee. For some reason I just ain't got a clue which way it's going. Today I got lucky and hit some decent drives, kept it in play, on some of the holes where you need to.

Q. Reading some of your back stuff and you said you played football and you played baseball and you ended up playing golf. Is golf just like a natural talent for you or something you really have to work at?
BOO WEEKLEY: Well, I'd say I got lucky. I'm pretty talented with hitting the ball. I've got good hand/eye coordination. The Lord blessed me in that department. I have to work pretty hard on my putting, chipping around the green. My touch for some reason ain't that good. You'd figure with good hand/eye coordination you'd think it would be all right.

Q. When did you start?
BOO WEEKLEY: I started I'd say '88. Wouldn't you say, mom?
MRS. WEEKLEY: Your eighth or ninth grade year.
BOO WEEKLEY: In '88. I got serious in '89.

Q. You shoot a 64. Did you kind of feel that coming? Yesterday did you start feeling things and thought you had this kind of round in you?
BOO WEEKLEY: I didn't feel like I had it in me, not yesterday, because I really wasn't hitting the ball as good yesterday as I was today. I got feeling more solid out there as I made the turn. Hit some good shots on the front side. Didn't capitalize on a couple of putts that I had. I went to the back and the whole thing on the backside is tighter. You've got to drive the ball better, and focus on where you're trying to hit it on the green, and give yourself the opportunity of a decent putt.
I'd just say I got it in the right spot and swung at it right. It was pretty good.

Q. How difficult was it for you to adjust to the speed of the greens this week after Augusta last week? And did you do anything particular to help yourself adjust?
BOO WEEKLEY: No, we're just back on Bermuda. You've got to know where the grain is, is the main thing. When you're putting on Bermuda greens, you have to realize and figure out, okay, I'm going into the grain, a little downhill, but still going into the grain a little bit. You've got to pick your spots and learn a little bit about the grass.

Q. Can a week at Augusta kind of ruin your putting for a couple of weeks?
BOO WEEKLEY: Well, just all depends on how you want to look at it. I take it that that was last week. I come into a new week and I try to start all over. I'm not going to say that's how everybody works, but for me what happened last week is over with. You kind of go with what's in front of you now.

Q. You say what happened last week, yet is it still kind of fun to come back here and just kind of remember when you play a round that this is where I won last year and this is where I made this shot?
BOO WEEKLEY: More than you know. More than you know. It's always fun to be able to look out on the crowd and see all the people pulling for you and chanting your name. I always have a place in my heart for this place. It's great to be able to come back here and say, hey, I was defending champion at one time and might still be coming up, all depends on what happens.

Q. To follow up, when you got to the fringe on 17, did you look back at the spot where you chipped in last year?
BOO WEEKLEY: No, sir, I sure examine. I try to avoid that (laughter). I should have told you I ain't answering that question.

Q. Kind of following up on what you're talking about, coming back to Harbour Town, seems like players who play well here once do it often. Six players have won more than one Heritage title. What is about this place that when you get a little success it breeds more success?
BOO WEEKLEY: I feel this golf course sets up for my game. I know exactly about how far I'm hitting it, and I kind of control the ball. I hit the ball kind of straight. I can work the ball either way. So it kind of helps out when you can work it either way, kind of know your distances and how far you want to hit it. And I like playing a little bit in the wind. Very similar to the golf course I grew up on, Tanglewood back home. Granted it's not as long as it is, and it's not quite as pretty as this, but as tightness goes off the tee, and the greens are small. It's kind of the same putting.

Q. What's the name of it?
BOO WEEKLEY: Tanglewood.

Q. Did you bring your tartan blazer back this week?
BOO WEEKLEY: I got it the other day when we marched around the lagoon there. I think I got it in my mama's car, packed up ready for a long drive back to Florida.

Q. Three straight birdies on the back, you were walking all three of those putts, you were going after it before it was in the hole, are you feeling that confident with the putter you've got that you know they're going in?
BOO WEEKLEY: I actually hit it on the line. Picked a spot and knowing I hit it at my spot and I felt like, okay, if I roll over this spot and it goes, that's the whole key for me is I pick a spot. And if I can roll it over that spot, I feel like I've got a hundred percent chance of it going in. All three of them I rolled it right over my spot, and that's when I starred walking, whether it went in or not.

Q. How do you like being a pro golfer? It's a pretty good life, isn't it?
BOO WEEKLEY: It's very stressful (laughter).
It is fun. To be able to categorize yourself and say I get to play with the best in the world, it is an awesome feeling. A lot of people, you know, they dream of this. Especially kids that dream to be able to do this for a living. It is great. The good Lord, like I say, has blessed me in so many ways, it's unreal.

Q. If you didn't have this gift, this talent, what would you be doing for a living?
BOO WEEKLEY: I'd be holding a shovel, probably, because I wasn't very good in school, neither.

Q. Halfway point now, at what point do you start thinking that you can defend?
BOO WEEKLEY: I felt like it on the first hole the first day. All I had to do was just stay focused and hitting my points and my shots, that I know I can hit and let the rest of it happen. That's the good thing about me. I get mad and I get aggravated out there, but at the same time it's still golf, and I'm going to shake it off one way or another.

Q. I don't see too many pros out here raking the bunker for their playing partner. What was going on at 16 when you crawled in the bunker?
BOO WEEKLEY: Just taking our time. It wasn't like we were in a hurry, since Calc had a foot problem, he fell out on us. We were just wasting time, more or less, is all I was doing. I figured I'd help him out, because my caddie was raking the first one. So I figured I could rake the second one. I ain't too good to rake a bunker.

Q. What did you think of your mother driving you in the Pro Am?
BOO WEEKLEY: It aggravated me, to tell you the truth. It kind of got under my skin a little bit. She'll want to stand here and tell you about it.
JOHN BUSH: Let's go through the card. Start with the birdie on 2.
BOO WEEKLEY: I hit driver down there and kind of pushed it a little bit. Got the tree on right there, so I hit the 3-iron on the front edge of the green. And I didn't hit a very good putt, the first putt. Ended up making about an 8-footer there to save birdie.
JOHN BUSH: Par-5, fifth.
BOO WEEKLEY: I hit a high and right driver up there, too, up in the edge of the trees, and took a 5-wood out and just choked it down, and hit a little punch, run it up there about the middle, front of the green. I had about a 18-footer to 15-footer there for eagle and left it just short, tapped it in.
JOHN BUSH: Birdie on the par-3.
BOO WEEKLEY: Par-3, I hit 6-iron. I had 201, and made about a -- I think it was probably about a 12-footer there, too.
JOHN BUSH: No. 12.
BOO WEEKLEY: Pushed a drive there again, high and right and kind of got blocked up by the trees. Had 140, I think. Took a 7-iron out and hit a big old high cut and had it about ten foot there and made it.
JOHN BUSH: Par-3, 14.
BOO WEEKLEY: Hit 7-iron, 175, 178 and hit it in there just behind the hole probably about ten foot, 12 foot.
JOHN BUSH: Par-5, 15.
BOO WEEKLEY: I hit driver, blocked it again high and right. That sounds like a broken record, don't it? I got lucky, I had a good lie and took a 5-wood out and tried to knock it up and over the trees, and pushed it a little bit and hit it in the bunker, and then chopped it out on the green about ten feet and made it.
JOHN BUSH: 16.
BOO WEEKLEY: High right again with a 3-wood. Hit a little choke 9-iron, like 136, 140 to the hole and hit it in just behind the hole and rolled it in.

Q. What were the conditions and everything here like this week so far compared to last year? How is the course playing as compared to last year?
BOO WEEKLEY: I'd say the course is probably playing at least two strokes easier than last year. Granted the wind, like I said, the wind ain't picked up. I looked on the weather this morning, looks like we've got a little front coming in, a little storm system that might be getting here tomorrow sometime.

Q. I guess that's why it's good to get out early tomorrow, play early and get out of here?
BOO WEEKLEY: Yeah. It's luck of the draw. Yesterday afternoon we got a little bit of the wind and luckily we played the backside first, where it was a little bit easier for the wind. The wind really picked up later in the day. This morning we got out bright and early this morning, and the wind ain't really picked up right now, but I'm pretty sure it will, like it always does in the afternoon here.

Q. This is a course where you're supposed to have to place your drive, even if you're in the fairway sometimes you don't have a real good shot to the greens. How did you get away with blocking your drive right so often today?
BOO WEEKLEY: I just got lucky. Seriously, I hit some trees today, knocked it back. Just got lucky. A course like this, if the ball kept rolling through or kept going further right, it would have been worse. And that's another reason every hole out here, you don't have to hit driver; you can hit 3-wood, hit 5-wood. You can set yourself in position that will help you, you can hit a 7-iron or a pitching wedge, it's your decision where you want to set yourself at. To me I like that kind of golf.

End of FastScripts

ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297