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CROWNE PLAZA INVITATIONAL AT COLONIALMay 20, 2014Boo WeekleyFORT WORTH, TEXAS THE MODERATOR: We'd like to welcome Boo Weekley into the interview room here at the Crowne Plaza Invitational at Colonial. Boo, first of all, I know this was a special place for you before you won, and now I know it's an extremely special place for you. If we can just get some comments on being back, and maybe trying to join Ben Hogan as the only player to ever successfully defend the title here? BOO WEEKLEY: That would be cool. But thanks for having me back. It's always fun to be able to come back to a place that you enjoy being around, and the golf course is always set up pretty good for the way I get to play. I just enjoy being back. Q. I know it's been a little bit of an up‑and‑down season for you, but you're coming off of a tie for fifth place last week. Little bit of momentum coming into the week? Just comment on the state of your game. BOO WEEKLEY: Yeah, my game's good. Last week I hit it solid. Just didn't make the putts, and I'm hoping maybe this week here my putter will get hot kind of like what it did last year in the middle of the round. Just hoping I can continue on. Q. Boo, you've had an up‑and‑down season. Were there particular areas that have been struggling in your game before this last week? BOO WEEKLEY: Oh, well, I ain't saying it's struggling; it's just I switched shafts. I've been playing graphites for the last three years, four years, and I've been having a few shoulder problems, elbow problems, and pain problems, so I decided I was feeling better about that, so I went back to steel shafts. Started hitting it a lot better, and actually played the ball well this year, just nothing fell, you know? Kind of like last week, a couple putts fell here and there, and kind of kept me close to the contention part of it. But just when I needed it, they didn't fall, you know. Q. Can you compare the state of your game this year to coming in last year? BOO WEEKLEY: I've got a lot more confidence. Coming into here last year last year I sat out on that driving range, and I probably hit, I don't know I probably was averaging 400 or 500 balls in the morning and in the afternoon. Hitting balls and hitting balls because I missed the cut last year at the Byron, because I couldn't figure out what was going on down there with the base angle. And this year I finished fifth there, so I got a little more confidence coming into here this year. Q. First of all, when did you go back to steel shafts? BOO WEEKLEY: New Orleans. It was the first time I've been back to steel shafts. Q. When you do that, how much time is there for the transition back? Was it an easy transition back? BOO WEEKLEY: It was pretty easy. Just the thing was trying to find out the distance control with it, because it seems like graphite gives you just a little more of I guess the bottom. You can step on it a little harder and you can get a little more out of it. Where steel, you can't make it flex no more than it's already flexing. That was about the only thing that kind of felt different, you know, was just how far the ball could fly off of graphite versus steel. Q. Tom Watson, Nick Price, Arnold Palmer, and Fuzzy Zoeller all won here and at Harbour Town, you joined that list last year. What is the similarity of those two golf courses, and what do you feel like being on the list of Hall of Fame players like that? BOO WEEKLEY: Being on a list like that is pretty awesome. Maybe I can join them one day as a Hall of Famer. But I have to say, the golf course is just one of those golf courses where you have to kind of shape your shots. If you can stand on the tee box and see two different shots, to me, that's a fun golf course because you ain't got just one shot and then just try to bomb it over the bunker or hit it out over here. You can stand up and say, all right, I'm going to get a cut on this hole or I'm going to hit a draw on this hole. There are two different ways you can play the game. That's what I like about playing here and at Harbour Town. Q. Matt Kuchar here last year, Matt obviously won at Harbour Town earlier this year. What do you feel about his play and how consistent he's been this year and how his game fits at the Colonial here as well? BOO WEEKLEY: I mean, Matt's an awesome player. He's straight down the middle. He gets it done, you know. I think the difference this year than has been in the past if you asked him, it's probably been his putting. He's making some more putts, and that's every one of us out here. If we can just make two more putts or three more putts a round than what we normally wouldn't make, it makes a big difference especially with that stroke game thing they started two years ago. I don't follow it, but everybody's like, hey, man, you know you're dead last in this putting department? I'm like really? God dog, what do I got to do? Things like that. But like I said, that's just one or two shots or putts a round that a ten foot putt goes in or 12‑foot putt goes in, and next thing you know, that thing starts falling. So it's just golf, man. Q. Have you had a chance to see your name on the wall? BOO WEEKLEY: Oh, yes, sir. I came back here, I don't remember how long it was ago now. It was a month, month and a half ago, I came back and got to see it. I had some buddies that have been out here playing that came by and took pictures and sent me pictures of all of them standing in front of it. So it's pretty neat. Q. (Indiscernible)? BOO WEEKLEY: It's an honor. I mean, to be able to know that that week I was the best that week, plus to be on the wall with all the guys that it was their week too. Q. You mentioned that this is a shot maker's course, obviously. Do you think longer hitters have maybe a disadvantage here to a certain degree? BOO WEEKLEY: I mean, I wouldn't know because I'm not a long hitter. But to me, I think if they can just sit down and break the golf course down to where their strengths are, I think they can play it well or a lot better. That's my opinion of it. That's what we kind of did last year. We just kind of broke the golf course down into places where we know that we can take advantage. If we hit it in the right spot, we can take advantage because we've got wedge in our hand or what I feel like 7‑iron down are scoring clubs. I feel like I can hit it inside 10 feet. So to me that's where I had to break it down the golf course to where if I hit it here, 3‑wood off this hole is going to leave me an 8‑iron or 7‑iron. If I can get aggressive it's feeling good, or if I hit driver, pitching wedge to gap wedge. Q. So let me ask you this: Have you played through here or played around here and ever felt, man, if I just had ten more yards, five more yards? BOO WEEKLEY: I always need ten. Don't we all that's playing golf. The only time I play like that was kind of like New Orleans. Places where it's a bomber. It's really more open. They don't have the rough, you know. It's just‑‑ but around here, you've got to golf your ball. You can't let your hair down because at any moment you're going to be in the rough over there, and now you're trying to hit a punt shot with a flier line, and you've got a bunker over here, and you've got over here to the creek or something like that, and then you go up and down, and it's tough. Q. You're not big on stats, but what was the thing you did best in the final round last year? What was the difference for you? BOO WEEKLEY: I kept it in front of me. That to me I felt like I was driving the ball good the whole week. As long as I could just keep it in play and keep it out of that little bit of rough around here, you know, I felt like I could get it on the green somewhere and just two‑putt or make a putt coming in. I felt like every time I stand over it, if my mind's right, and I feel like I've got the right club, I felt like I could knock it in at any moment. Q. If I recall, last year you were using Tommy's caddie? BOO WEEKLEY: No, I've had Barry Williams. Q. You've had him for long? BOO WEEKLEY: Well, Blake Adams had to have hip surgery at Torrey Pines two years ago or a year and a half ago. I think it was a year and a half ago, and I've had him ever since. Q. So a year and a half you've had him? BOO WEEKLEY: I think something like that. I don't know. We've just been together, man. It's just a job. Q. Was he pretty instrumental in helping you last year? BOO WEEKLEY: He was. I mean, he read a lot of putts. I was having problems with my eyes last year. I kept having a twitch, I could never get focused on where to start the ball. Like I'd see one spot and next thing you know I'd start getting a twitch, and I'd be like all right, I can't see it no more. And he'd be like let's do this, and we started. Even when it kind of got me into where I could see where I was wanting to put this ball at. Q. (Indiscernible)? BOO WEEKLEY: I had a little more of it last year. I had a couple times this year, but not as bad so far. I don't know if it was due to a lot of stress coming into this tournament or something, because I didn't play real well last year all the way up until this tournament. All of a sudden, we won, you know. We've always got stress. You're married and got two kids, you've got stress. Just kidding, Babe (laughing). Q. Can you talk about last year and what that win meant for you? Obviously, you had kind of recommitted yourself to the game? BOO WEEKLEY: Yes, I mean I've been working with a guy named Scott Hamilton, which Steven Bowditch had won earlier this year and had been working with him. Chris Kirk started working with him and then won, and then you've got Brendon Todd that just won last week with him. So he's kind of got us all going in the right direction, and then finally everything started syncing together after we sat down. Like I said, he just looked at a lot of the stuff I was doing wrong over at the Byron last year, and he was like, all right, man. This is simple. Let's just go back to what we were focusing on and get away to what we're working on. Went back to old school stuff, and next thing you know, here I am sitting in front of you again this year. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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