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FEDEX ST. JUDE CLASSICJune 5, 2013Boo WeekleyMEMPHIS, TENNESSEE JOHN BUSH: We'd like to welcome Boo Weekley here into the interview room, making his eighth start here at the FedEx St. Jude Classic. First of all, welcome back. Get your thoughts on being back here in Memphis. BOO WEEKLEY: I appreciate being back here in Memphis. I really enjoy this golf course, and I have a lot of family that lives close to here, so it's always fun to be here playing in front of my family. Very rarely do they get to come out and see me play. It's good to be back. It's hot. I love it. JOHN BUSH: You just got your third career win on the PGA TOUR. Maybe take us back to that Sunday, and how much that tournament meant to you to win there with Ben Hogan? BOO WEEKLEY: Yeah, it meant a lot, but just being able to play at that level and stay in the zone for four days, for a lot of us players out here, that's kind of hard to do and I actually did it and turns out that I ended up winning tournament. It was a great Sunday day. You know, overall to win a tournament that's got so much history to it with Ben Hogan being one of my heros and now my name is up on the wall with his, it's an awesome feeling. JOHN BUSH: It was announced today by the PGA TOUR and Avis Car Rental that you've been selected as the May PGA TOUR Player of the Month presented by Avis. As the official rental car company of the TOUR, Avis will make a $50,000 contribution in your name to be split by two charities, Vision of Hope, and Christ's Starfish Foundation. I know that means a lot to you as well. BOO WEEKLEY: Actually, it means a lot more to my wife, but it means a lot to me too. My wife works on both of their faculties trying to raise money for their two charities. They've been struggling the last couple of years. But for Avis being able to put up the cash for us to be able to do this and to win the fans' vote and my wife went viral with this as soon as we found out. I mean, she was calling up Dale Jr., called up everybody that we knew just trying to get this out and about to get people to vote. The whole school board where I live at, they went viral with it through the whole school, the sheriff‑‑ I'm friends with the sheriff down there, and he's got all the police department from Escambia County all the way to Defuniak Springs voting on it, so it was pretty big. Q. When you haven't won in a while, when you win one, what's it do for confidence? Could you feel it coming like a couple of weeks before, or just when you get in that moment, you feel like you've got it going? BOO WEEKLEY: I started working with Scott Hamilton, my teacher. You know, then he's kind of changed a little bit more my attitude. I wouldn't say he changed it, but it's gotten to where my attitude has gotten better on the golf course, where I believe more with what I'm doing. Working with him, he's a very positive guy. We've been working so hard for the last year and a half, you know, and it finally got to a matter of time I felt like, all right, it's getting close. I told a few of the reporters that had traveled with us out here day‑in and day‑out, that they've asked questions where I finished second, how close do I feel to maybe winning? And I told them, it's there. It's just a matter of getting everything in sync, letting the stars lineup and it happening, and it did over at Colonial, you know. But we've been working so hard at it. Like you said, it has been kind of depressing the last couple of years, because I haven't been as healthy as I am right now as I feel right now. I might not look as healthy, but I feel as healthy, And that's the thing. I think once you start feeling it, then you can start believing in it and you can start playing it. Q. Talking about your health, is there anything you've done in the last few months, few years to kind of improve that part of your game? BOO WEEKLEY: I've slowed down on the hard activities. Like, you know, I built a barn or something like that around the house, instead of me picking up the 4 by 4 that's 12 foot long and try to stand it up myself, I get people to help me now or use my tractor. Instead of doing stuff that I used to do by myself, now I'm having to use people to help me because I'm afraid now I don't want to tweak something or tear something up again. Q. Coming here, what about this course helps you the most? Are you playing next week? Will this help maybe tune you up for Merion? BOO WEEKLEY: Playing here is always, like I said, it's just close to the house. I think it's an eight‑hour drive or seven‑and‑a‑half‑hour drive from my house. I enjoy the people up here because they understand what I'm saying when I'm talking. We don't have to do no translating amongst us. We're all kind of southerners. This golf course sets up real good for me. I like the Bermudagrass on the greens. It's one of those courses I feel like I can win on too. It's just I haven't done it. I've played decent here a couple times, but haven't excelled enough for four days. I think this is going to tune me up a little bit for Merion next week. So, I mean, I'm excited to be able to go back to the Open and play again. I feel like my game's close. Taking a week off and not practicing, just spending time with my kids and stuff. It takes me about another week to get it back together again. That's why I was ready to play this week and get it all ready. Q. Mr.Weekly, congratulations on your Crowne Plaza win. What part of your game did you spend the most time on to get yourself back into winning form? BOO WEEKLEY: I'd have to say the putting is what I've been working on the most. I've been working on instead of the actual making the putts it's more the speed of the putt, the way I take my putter back. I think it's called the SAMs Lab which is like a little putting thing you can go on and it shows your path of your stroke, and me and Scott Hamilton, my golf coach, that's what we've been working on, trying to get my swing path and speed to match up at the same time. Like my ten‑footers, my 20‑footers, granted, I grew up on the old Bermudagrass where you popped a ball, get it on top of the grass and let it roll. Where you're traveling out here you get greens that roll 10 to 13, you go to popping it, and next thing you know you might have a ten‑footer coming back. So we've been working on that. That's the hardest thing I've been working on in the last couple of months, years. Q. How many immediate family members do you expect to be here, and where is the house in terms of the actual town or community or whatever? BOO WEEKLEY: Well, I've got family that live in harts field, Alabama, Florence, Huntsville, shoot, Hamilton, and then there's a couple of them that live just south of New Hope right here, just into Mississippi down there that's going to be here. And I've got some family that's coming from Elba, Alabama, Brantley, and then the ones that come from my house, my mom and them are coming from Santa Rosa County, Milton, Florida down there. Q. How long have you and Scott worked together? Have you always had a coach? BOO WEEKLEY: No, we've been working together for about almost two years now, two full years. But the real coach that I had was Gene Howard, and he was my golf coach in high school, and he taught me through high school. He was just a golf coach. He was the guy that actually introduced golf to me and taught me how to play. I worked with him a little bit, as I said, all through high school, and then a little bit into college. Then when I quit college, I didn't have a teacher. I just kind of did it on my own. When I kind of did it on my own, my mom helped me out a lot. She had a bunch of old VHS videos. We kind of watched the videos and looked back at that and kind of pinpoint aid little bit of what we thought we were doing, spinning out and simple stuff. Didn't know a whole lot about my swing, but I knew when it didn't right, what I felt and we could talk about it and. I worked with a guy named Mark Blackmon was the next guy I started to work with, and that's when I had just gotten on the Nationwide Tour in '02 or '03 or '04. I worked with him a little bit. Then I worked with a guy named Mike Taylor out of Sea Island on my first two wins, and I started working and kind of dropped him and did a thing by myself for about a year, and then picked up Scott. Q. The decision when you change teachers or to get a teacher, how hard is that? When you get one teacher and you think I'm okay, then for a year you go on your own. How hard is it to say maybe I need the extra set of eyes on me, and how do you do that? Do you watch how the guys teach? BOO WEEKLEY: No, it's kind of like‑‑ I mean, I know my swing. I've known my swing. Sometimes like you say, you need an extra set of eyes. You try to learn what that person's teaching you. Once you learn what they're teaching you, within a year's time or two yearsÂ’ time, if it ain't working, it's time to move on because you ain't getting no better. You can work at it, work at it, work at it all you want, but if it ain't getting any better, it's time to get somebody else involved and trying to find another solution. All the guys that I've had, starting with Mark, Mike Taylor, to the guys now, they all teach a different way. They all come across a different way. But really it's all in relation, it is the same. It's just how they relate it to me to where my brain, simple mind. I'm real simple about the way I want to keep things, because the more you get technical, the worse it gets. It's just a matter of trying to communicate. I think I found somebody that likes to communicate with the way I do. Q. Describe what it's like to walk around the club, a place like this, after you've won the previous time you've played? BOO WEEKLEY: What now? You mean, if I won here? Q. No, just like having won, like you did a few weeks ago, and then to come back to a place or anyplace on TOUR? BOO WEEKLEY: Oh, it's fun. People are always congratulating you, you know? I mean, it is a good time. It doesn't matter what you win or where you're winning at or even if you finish second. A lot of these guys out here they do pull for you. They don't show it as much, but they do. We're like a big family out here. Whether we act like it or not, we are. We're all going to have our bickering.  Every family does. But it's cool to come back and see a lot of the guys that you played with, like last Thursday and Friday of the tournament, and then Phil was like, man, you were hitting the ball good on Thursday and Friday. You must have kept on that putter and it must have kept going good for you, so it's pretty awesome. Q. With that, do you have to almost tune them out when you head to Thursday and you get ready to tee off and shut off all of that and refocus? BOO WEEKLEY: Oh, that was two weeks ago. That's over with. My goal now is to win this one. That's over with. You can't live in the past. That's one thing I've been working with Scotty. He's like, look, just because you hit it bad here the last three years doesn't mean you're going to hit it bad this year, so quit thinking it. So I won't be thinking like that. Q. How does your attitude change from when you come from not winning to when you start winning and you feel confident with your game? How does your attitude sort of change when you get out there on the course? BOO WEEKLEY: It frees you up. You don't get as mad. Like you've got a 100‑yard shot where we expected to hit it within ten foot and you hit it 12 foot and it spins back and goes in the water. Well, if I was on the bubble there trying to make sure I keep my PGA TOUR card, I'd be upset and wanting to beat my bag or break something with my attitude. If you're winning and making enough money to keep your card for next year, it kind of frees you up so your attitude stays at a level keel instead of an up‑and‑down roller coaster where you're high one minute because you made two birdies and the next minute you make a double or something. That's what happens out here to a lot of us. It happens. One minute we're running high, next minute you make one bad swing and you lose your composure. Next thing you know, it's gone. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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