Crowne Plaza Inv. at Colonial interview: Boo Weekley

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May 26, 2013

Crowne Plaza Invitational transcripts

I would like to welcome Boo Weekley the 2013 Champion of the Crowne Plaza Invitational at Colonial. Boo, if you want to take us through your initial thoughts then we will have some questions.

I'm excited, that's my main thought. It's unreal. Ever since I've been coming here and looking at that wall, and you see all of them names on the wall, and finally I get to have my name up there. It don't get no better than that.

MARK STEVENS: You made a few comments about Ben Hogan being your idol, if you want to go into that.

BOO WEEKLEY: When I first started into golf, I didn't know much about it. And as we got rolling through, a guy I was working with or grew up with was a coach at the high school and my family got me a set of Ben Hogan clubs on sale, a set of PC', or something like that, and then went through and kind of fell in love with the way the golf clubs felt, and got to reading about him and the next thing I know he was my man.

MARK STEVENS: Questions?

Q. Boo, can you tell the difference between that particular plaid coat and the others at RBC?

No, sir. It's been so long I couldn't tell you. I couldn't tell you it's been so long.

Q. It seems like it's been a long time since you were riding that imaginary horse at the Ryder Cup. Just take me through some of the emotions and was that the biggest challenge, confidence or the mental side of the game?

Getting to this point has been the confidence. The mental side of it I always am struggling with that, you know. You got to believe in what you're doing, what you are working on. But over the last, I don't know, beginning this year, we changed some things up, or didn't change anything. We just made things better with my swing. I started getting a little more healthier, my shoulder started feeling better. We broke down my putting a little bit and kind of went through some putting stats and went through some stuff that would help me. Scott Hamilton, in Cartersville, he's got like a little sand lab, and we went through it and realized where my faults was and we made it better. It was just a matter of time. I really believe if I can keep this emotion going I feel like I can probably do it again this year.

Q. Playing into emotion, do you feel like your fans really helped you along this journey?

Oh, yes. Any time you hear your name, especially when you are playing good, it's fun. When you are playing bad, you don't want to hear it. Why are you hollering my name right now, dude, I'm like 10 over. It's still fun having the fans pull for you and not just the fans but a lot of the people that are apart of this tournament that are pulling for you. Over the years I have become friends with them. It means a lot.

Q. Did you realize when you made the turn what happened ahead of you with Scott? Did you look at the board?

I haven't seen a board until I got to hole 13. That's when I realized, wow, here I go, I need to do something. Either hold on to it or try to make a couple of more birdies just to kind of lock it up. I kind of gave myself the opportunity. I hit one good putt and one bad putt, but overall it turned out. I don't know what happened to him.

Q. I was going to ask you about the putt at 13. As soon as you let it go, it seemed like you were trying to guide it in and you knew where it was going. Talk about the emotions there and holding on afterwards.

It wasn't that I was holding on. I knew I was hitting the ball too well to hold on. My main thing was trying to make sure we hit the right spots. As long as I picked the right spot, even if I made a bad swing, coming down the stretch. But I hit both of them solid enough that they turned out okay. So it wasn't a matter of what could happen. It was a matter of where am I going to miss at. That was the whole key coming down the stretch because we still feel like we was putting the ball good. But hitting our lines we just misread a couple.

Q. You spoke yesterday about your left eye and the hearing issue, did you have similar issues today?

I had a few out there. I mean it was coming and going with that wind. It was like it dried it out and then all of a sudden I have to press a towel in there to get it wet again. I don't know what's going to happen. We are going to get home and work on it.

Q. So when you call your caddy in you guys have only been working since Honda, right, that's a lot of confidence to place in your caddy, a guy that you haven't really worked a lot with before?

Well, you know, he caddied for Blake Adams, which is a close friend of mine that plays out here, and he had to have hip surgery. Me and Blake for the last year, couple years, however long he has been out here, and Barry Williams has been working with him. We played a lot of practice rounds together . He kind of knew my game. You know what I mean. He saw a different side today, and I saw a different side today which I ain't seen since the Ryder Cup. That was like my adrenaline was so pumped. I am hitting wedges 150 yard, 155. Or 6-irons 210 yards. So that adrenaline took over, that's kind of where we made bogeys, or on the front side we kind of
made bogeys because the adrenaline got a little bit in the way.

Q. So on this course, obviously it's a shot maker's course, it seems like that's a course that's ideal for you would you say?

Yes, sir. I like this golf course because it ain't that you just end up on the tee and you bomb away. That's what a lot of these golf courses, people are building now, that's the whole set up. They want you to -- how far can you hit it? Not the guys that hit it straight out. If you want to make a golf course tough, let's narrow it up and see who comes out on top then.

Q. Boo, how many times did you bring Barry in to help you read some putts? Were any of those on your birdie holes?

Oh, yes, sir. On 10, for sure. And then let's see, probably 9. That's right where it started 9. I hit it pretty close on 8 when I started my birdie there. On 9 there he kind of came in. I couldn't tell if it was going to be straight. I even got a book and I was looking at it and it looked like it was straight. He is like, no, it's out here. He gave me a spot to look at and just judged off of it, and the speed of the putt I was trying to hit. And then the same thing on 10.

Q. Boo, at what point in your life did you decide that golf was going to be your career? Did you face a crossroads at some point, it was either that or med school or something like that?

I know you are joking when you said med school with me. No, I worked at a chemical plant, you know, when I got out of the college. I only went one year, and I dropped out of the college and went to a chemical plant and worked there for three years and then Heath Slocum, or his dad, Jack Slocum, started a mini tour around the house there and there was already a mini Tour going around there called Emerald Coast Tour. They caught me playing. I was like a weekend warrior, I reckon is what you call it. I kind of went out and played and won. I kind of called my mom, I said, momma, I think I might have found something else to do beside going to the plant every morning at 6 and clocking in. So we tried it and one thing lead to another and I am right here in front of you holding this mic.

Q. You had a couple of makeable birdie holes on the last five holes, can you talk about what happened on those putts?

They told me the first putt on 14, they said I just moved my head real bad. It kind of came up out of the putt. On 17 there, I just actually misread that putt. I thought it was going to turn right just a little bit, and I played inside left lip and I must have hit it a little too firm.

Q. Boo, in the five years since your previous win, was there ever a time that crossed your mind, you know what, maybe I should just hunt and fish the rest of my life or something like that?

It's crossed a lot. But I can fish and still play golf. Maybe down the road, you know. Right now I am still enjoying the game. Just like told my caddy on 1, these butterflies feel good. It feels good to actually have them again knowing that I'm in this opportunity to maybe to win this thing. I might have shot 80 today but I didn't. It was my time to win. I told him it is just a funny feeling that you finally get to feel. It' kind of gave me some more energy of what I want to do with my life and where I want to go.

Q. Playing on of that question, if you could give any advice to those that are starting a little bit later in golf, what advice would you give them? My second question is, would you have started golf earlier if you could have?

I'd say find them a swing coach. Find them somebody that fits them as a person first. Go out to be able to get along with who you are working with, and then let them work on it. The coach can tell you if you got it or you don't got it. A lot of us got to do it with your heart. If you feel like you got it, and you really want to work at it there, I represent nobody can stop you because it's what you believe. What was the other one?

Q. Starting earlier?

There is no way I would have started earlier. I love baseball too much. I loved all other sports, baseball, football, basketball. We played all of them growing up. Boo is not a golf name as you can tell. You don't know if they are booing because it's who you are, or if you hit a bad shot. It's a baseball name, something like Yogi Berra, something like that, but I will leave that alone.

Q. You mentioned feeling the butterflies out there today, how long had it been since you really felt them to that level, did you have to do anything to account for them today?

We finally got relaxed out there, me and my caddy. He kind of slowed me down. I can tell he was a little more nervous as I was, or just as much nervous as I was out there because he ain't never walked that fast. He looked like a horse running to get a goat. It was different there. He slowed down, and I get around a ball. It was fun with him because we get to a hole, or we get to where we was at, and he's kind of like, take a couple of deep breaths, wipe your hands off a couple of extra times. So then that's how we went about it.

MARK STEVENS: Thanks for your time, Boo. Good luck down the road.

BOO WEEKLEY: Thank you.

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