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VERIZON HERITAGEApril 15, 2009Boo WeekleyHILTON 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. Not a bad track record here at Harbour Town, two starts and two wins. Let's get your comments on what's a very special place for you. BOO WEEKLEY: It is a very special place. I mean, I've been very lucky. I had two championship in the last two years. Guys didn't play as well as they wanted to on the back, so I feel like I got lucky both times. JOHN BUSH: Comment on your season. BOO WEEKLEY: It's been a rough year so far. And having to switch balls, trying to find some clubs that will fit with the ball and perform the way I want it to. Just been a long year so far with the ball. Just lose a little distance with it into the wind. And I've just got to learn how to work with it. Q. You said the other day this place just feels like home to you. Is that as much responsible for how you play, the comfort level you have here? BOO WEEKLEY: Yes, and it seems like every time I tee it up, I look down the side of the fairways, I don't see the people, I just see the trees. And that's what it feels like at home. You sit there at the very first hole it's just, all right, this is like playing in Sandy Hills in Pensacola. And you get to another hole, this is playing like Hidden Creek in Navarre Beach. Every hole, it doesn't make me feel like I'm home, just a different hole, different place. And again, the no see 'ems around here. Q. Did you have a good feeling about this place before you came here? Did you hear good things and did people say this course might suit you, so when you get here you might do pretty well? BOO WEEKLEY: Heath Slocum, yeah, he told me I'd love this one and Colonial. By far that will be your two favorite golf courses on Tour. And he's right about one so far. Q. As much as you're outdoor hunting, do the no see 'ems bug you down here? BOO WEEKLEY: I just learned the cure the week before last when I was in Seattle, because I used Listerine. Q. Listerine? BOO WEEKLEY: Listerine, yes, siree. A pro told us that. He said just take a little napkin, pour a little Listerine on it, and pat yourself down on your sleeves where your skin is showing, and just pat it around the side of your ears and everywhere, and you should be fine. Good thing, if you got bad breath, you lick your skin, lick it off (laughter). Q. Have you tried it? BOO WEEKLEY: I tried it with Scope, but they like Scope. It worked for a little while and all of a sudden it was like (indicating), we asked the pros, what's up with that, that's Scope, that ain't Listerine. Why would you put Scope in there if Listerine works? Q. You mentioned the course, it looks good to you, the trees and all, but this is there certain aspect of the course and a style you like to play? I assume you like to hit your driver a lot? BOO WEEKLEY: I try to hit driver on every hole. Q. Out here? BOO WEEKLEY: Yes, sir. I try to, according to where the wind is. But it's a golf course where it's all about precision of how far you've got to hit it. If you can control your distance you'll play good here. And if you've got to hit it so far, you've got to get it around the corner, you get it too far you're blocked out by the other ear trees, and small greens and we're on Bermudagrass. And I grew up on Bermudagrass and I feel like I've got an advantage -- to me I feel like I've got an advantage, when I stand up on it because I know how it grows, the way it runs, just like it's going downhill, didn't mean the grain is going downhill, it follows the sun a little bit, so I think it's to my advantage on that. Q. Before you won here, did you ever picture yourself wearing a suit jacket like that? BOO WEEKLEY: Not unless I was in Hollywood, in the movies. That would be the only way I'd have thought I'd ever have wore anything like that. Q. Do you like it? BOO WEEKLEY: Oh, yeah, I'd like about six more of them. Q. Do you have two of them or do they keep giving you the same one? BOO WEEKLEY: No, I've got two of them. I have one at the house that has fortune cookies on it, and the other one has my name on the back of it. Q. This year has been tough on some small-market events like this one, how much more responsibility do players and should players feel to coming and helping these events out, maybe playing a little bit bigger schedule? BOO WEEKLEY: I think that we all should. Every pro should have his responsibility; it's part of his job. It ain't just playing golf, it's trying to help the Tour in any direction, any way that you can. And unfortunately some of the players don't feel the same way. Some of them are a little shier than others, like me. But I think if the tournament approached the players, the ones that they would want, the right way, it ain't about momentum, trying to giving them something to try to get them to do it, if they approach them the right way, they might see the outcome might be better. Q. How are they approaching them now? BOO WEEKLEY: I don't know. I know how they approached me. They didn't have to. If they called me up and asked me to do something, I'm going to do it. It ain't because I'm doing it for myself, I want the Tour to survive. I want the Verizon to be here for the next 30 or 20 more years. The way I look at it is, if they are helping us keep this tournament alive, why not go? It's only an hour, two hours out of your time. What else are you going to do, lay on the bed in a motel room, eating crackers, drinking beer or something? Q. Obviously you wanted to do better at the Masters, but how much does knowing that this place was coming up kind of help you to kind of take away any bad feelings over that and kind of focus on this? BOO WEEKLEY: I didn't think about this place when I was there. I was there to compete and play the best I could play there. When it was over with I put my clubs in the back of my buddy's truck and locked them up and I didn't pick them up until we got here or until yesterday, more or less. So I don't look at it like that. I feel like wherever I'm at, that's where my concentration is. Q. Since you did the little horse riding thing at the Ryder Cup, how often do you get asked to do that? BOO WEEKLEY: Every time I tee it up, and about every hole (laughter). I can't believe I still did it. Q. When you saw it on tape, what did you think? BOO WEEKLEY: What an idiot (laughter). It was fun. I shouldn't have wore black socks. I thought I had a pair of boots on when I saw the black sock and black shoes. Q. You mentioned distance control has been a problem with the ball, and distance control is what you need here. Is that a concern going into this? And what kind of ball are you trying to use now? BOO WEEKLEY: I'm playing Srixon Star, Z Star Y or X Star Z, I'm not sure. I've got so many of them. They're good balls. I ain't complaining about the ball. It's more trying to find a set of clubs that help keeps the ball from spinning as much off of them or going too high. For me I don't like to hit the ball real high. I like to keep it down a little bit. We found it now. We found two weeks ago we found a set of shafts that help me control the ball flight. So I'm anxious to really come out here and be able to play and see exactly what's going to happen. I'm excited about now I know how far I'm hitting and how far it's going to go, and how much it's going to spin. Q. If you had real success with the ball you were using last year, why would you change? Is it all sponsorship related? BOO WEEKLEY: No, it had a little bit to do with it -- I'm going to have to pass on that one. It had a lot to do with -- it was Titleist golf ball, and it had a lot to do with Callaway, the stuff they had going on. So that was the issue there. And if they can't make that ball anymore, they run out of them, what are you going to do then? You're going to have to switch anyway. Q. You mentioned the shafts, is it a stiffer shaft or less stiff? BOO WEEKLEY: It's a little heavier. I've gone to a little heavier shaft and it's a little bit lighter. And the head is always light. All the manufacturers, the back of my clubs, I've always had lead in the back of them. They ain't got quite as much lead on the back of them now. Q. How is your health at the moment? BOO WEEKLEY: A little sketchy. My back is a little hurting. I feel like I slept on a cinderblock Sunday night. But it will be all right. I've been working on getting in, stretching me out. Got it stretched out yesterday and then this morning I got up and got it stretched out again. Q. What caused it and how long has it been bothering you? BOO WEEKLEY: From Monday, from when I woke up Sunday night or Monday morning, to yesterday I woke up again and it got worse. And I started working with these guys here yesterday afternoon. I couldn't draw it back. I went out and played nine, I couldn't get it airborne. I was struggling out there. I came in here to the fitness trailers, and they stretched me and worked on it and put a little heat on it. And last night when I got back home from the pairings party, I put some ice on it. Woke up this morning, wasn't nowhere near as tight and I feel a little better. I just got through getting it worked on again. Q. Is that a recurring problem? Have you ever had a problem with your back? And were you ever in jeopardy from not playing this week because of it? BOO WEEKLEY: No. It's only if I sleep wrong. I've got scoliosis, it's something that will always be there, and then my beer gut don't help it. That's something I have to work on. Q. You have scoliosis? BOO WEEKLEY: Yes. Q. I was going to say, do you spend any time thinking about winning that third in a row, three straight years, kind of a landmark on the PGA TOUR? BOO WEEKLEY: If I win, I win. It ain't like I ain't going out there to try. If it happens, man, it's going to happen, you know what I mean? There's no use forcing the issue. Just go out and enjoy life and enjoy what's in front of you. Granted if I don't win, I'll be upset with myself. That's just part of anything you do in life, when you think you can succeed and when you think you can win, and you fail, it's not like you failed everybody in this room, you failed yourself. And I proved that at the Honda that year, I three-putted. I didn't fail all my fans, I failed myself. So I decided I'd work a little harder on what my problem was and at the time my problem was putting. And I came here and started working with a guy named Mike Taylor from Seattle, and here you go, we win it. And last year he shows up again, and we start working more on it. So I'm curious to see how this is going to evolve this week. I get to play with one of the past championships, Davis Love III. How many times has he won it? Five times. That's going to be a shot out of the window. I'm going to give him six (laughter). Q. You talked about the grains on the green and Bermudagrass. Is it more speed? Is it break? Where does grain really figure in when you're putting the ball? BOO WEEKLEY: Kind of like carpet, you got shag carpet, you've got fine carpet. I'd say in the morning time it really doesn't matter that much, but later in the evening as the sun starts popping up and getting above the trees and everything it really makes a difference, because you've got to figure out where the sun is going, where the water is, and where the slope is. It's just something that if you grew up on it, it's easier to understand. It's like looking at bentgrass. I think bentgrass is easier to putt on up north. I said there ain't no way it can go this way, the whole hill is sloped like this (indicating), but it's going that way. I feel the same way that some of the people do when they come here for the first time like, man, there ain't no way that thing is going that way, because they're from up north and can't see the grain. JOHN BUSH: Thanks, Boo, for coming by and good luck going for number three. End of FastScripts |
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