Fairways of Life is joined by Danny Walker, a PGA Tour Player whose journey has led him to an opportunity to make the FedEx Cup Playoffs as he is poised inside the top 100 Players in points.
Danny Walker has is a player that has been making a lot of noise this year. Cast your minds back to March when he asserted himself at the players. He ended up finishing tied for six. He is one amongst the professional ranks only 20 PGA Tour starts four top 25s. He’s currently 91st in FedEx Cup standings. And you just heard us talking to Ryan about the importance of where you are in those standings. There’s the 100 that will keep their card. There’s the 70 after this week that will march on through the FedEx Cup playoffs. And there is of course the 30 that will make their way to the Tour Championship. Uh Danny Walker, 66 Cornferry Tour starts, 23 PGA Tour Canada starts, two wins on the ladder at 29 years old, is joining us today. Danny, what’s going on, my man? How have you been? I’m all good. Uh yeah, just finished up in the gym and uh having a good day so far. Ready to talk to you guys? Very cool. Uh Andrew, would you take would you take Danny in a wide shot there so we can show the audience where he is? So, could you describe for us, Danny, where you are right now? Does that exercise equipment behind you? Uh, no. I’m in a some hospitality area by the clubhouse that uh looks a little bit like a bar. So, looks like set up for Margaritavville this week. So, no margaritas yet this morning, but maybe maybe on Sunday night, right? So, uh yeah, hopefully it shows some nice color for the audience. It’s very cool to tell you the truth. Yeah, I thought that was like a treadmill or something behind you to the right, but it must be part of the the bar setup. Dom was before you came on the air, I saw the shot and I said to Dom, when we were in preview in the commercial, I said, “Why don’t you have Danny take off his lanyard?” He goes, “No, why don’t you ask him about that because isn’t that what this is all about? People getting to know him, does he need to wear a lanyard around so people know who he is?” How much has life changed for you since the players? Are you getting recognized more or is it still the core golfers that get to know you and see the ascent that you’re on? Um, I mean, I guess there was a little bit of recognition like the week after like living in Jacksonville just because I think so many people go to the event in town. Um, but since then not a lot. I mean, I think maybe more of the the guys on tour probably know who I am after that, but as far as like public recognition, it’s not much has changed. Um, life’s pretty much the same. Just, uh, I guess bank account’s a little better, which is nice. But, um, yeah, otherwise life’s good. Yeah. To that point of the bank account at the players, if I if I’m not mistaken, the number I wrote down was 843,750ish that you won at the players. It’s significance to your bank account, though. All kidding aside, what was it, a year, a year and a half, you said that you had no money in your bank account? How much has that kind of changed life for you, too? Yeah, a lot. So, early last season. Um, like I I didn’t play well the beginning of the cornfair season last year on the international uh swing to start the year and that part of the season’s expensive and I pretty much exhausted most of my resources. So, I even I think I borrow borrowed a little bit of money just to get me through about a month from my dad. Um probably like March, April of last year. Um I thankfully had a few good finishes there uh thereafter and haven’t been a haven’t had to do that since which is good. Um, you know, it’s a little bit of a a humbling experience, you know, at whatever I was 27 at the time, having to still ask for help from your family, but uh hopefully I’m past that now and can uh give it back to them in the future. How did it go down that you were able to get into the players and who did you get paired with in those first couple of rounds? Yeah, so it was it was uh on Thursday morning I got I got a call. Um, I was already on property and gone through like a little bit of a a body warm up just to get things started cuz when you’re at first alternate, you got to be there ready to go from first tea time. Um, so yeah, it was it was over an hour and a half beforehand, so I still had time to get some breakfast and get ready for the tea time with Jordan and Windham. Yeah, it was a little uh I don’t know, it was a little shocking at first because I wasn’t really honestly expecting to to get in. Um it’s it’s 50-50 at best. I I think when you’re when you’re first alternate on Thursday, whether you’re going to get the call or not. So, um yeah, I was just grateful for the opportunity. And what was it like playing alongside of two of the game superstars like that in that kind of a setting? Did it have the effect of making you nervous or did it have the opposite effect of kind of settling you down and going, “No, I can hang.” Um I was the nerves were there for like the first T-shot. Um but from there it almost kind of helped me settle into the rest of the week because um you know that was as far as Thursday Friday goes like the first T-shot uh in that moment was probably the most nerve-wracking thing. So from there at least the next two days everything was easier um at least until maybe Sunday. Uh yeah, I think that helped. Um and having some experience playing with uh some of the bigger names and crowds earlier in the season I think helped as well. Um got a chance to play with Lvig uh at Tory on on Saturday in the final group early in the year. I think that helped me for the players. If memory serves me, you made the cut on the number, right? I did. Yeah. And then you went crazy in the weekend, particularly on Saturday. What happened? So, it it was a little bit fortunate that uh with the weather on Saturday that there wasn’t we didn’t play in nearly as much wind on the front nine and then it really picked up kind of towards the end of our round and all the guys in the afternoon had to play in that. So, I I don’t remember what I shot on the front nine, maybe four under, I think. So, I was able to kind of jump start my round and find some rhythm that I could kind of maintain as the wind picked up because when you’re starting your round it’s blowing 30, it’s kind of hard to get your rhythm going. But if you can kind of get that rhythm going before the wind picks up, I think that helps. Um, yeah. So, I went from making the cut on the number to being in like seventh place going into Sunday. So, that was a a big change. Incredible. So, when when you find out that you get in, as you said, you’d already kind of warmed up the body a little bit. Accounts said that you you kind of went to your car and took a moment of meditation. Did you get emotional at that point? Did it kind of hit you from a from a gratitude standpoint or what were your thoughts? Yeah, some of it was gratitude. Um, just having I moved to Jacksonville back in gosh, I think 2019. So, living there and practicing at TPC every day. Um, you know, you’re just dreaming of getting a chance to play in the players since you’re there all the time. Um, and at some some points you don’t know for sure whether that’s going to happen. Um, so I was just, yeah, just grateful to to be able to be playing um, fulfill my dreams I’ve had since I was a little kid. So I knew it was going to be a good week regardless of how the results results went. So Danny, tell us again where it is. How did you how did you find this local to do your interview? Did you ask like the sponsors if they had good internet there or something? No, I was just I was about to walk into the clubhouse and and just try and find a quiet spot and I just looked over to the right. I was walking in and saw a bunch of chairs and a tent and no one was over there. I was like, that looks like a good quiet spot to do this. So, I uh I just came over here. It’s awesome. What are your thoughts going into this week given your position? What’s kind of the vibe and the feel on site? Um, I mean, for me, I more more than anything else, I’m just trying to get some positive vibes and some good momentum going. Like, I’ve had a bit of a frustrating stretch the last six events where I feel like my game’s in a, you know, a pretty good spot. I’m just not getting not getting results. So, um it’s been a little bit of a a test on my uh on my resilience, I guess, and just trying to make sure I uh do all the little things right to set myself up for a good week and hopefully just let the results come. Uh a lot of good opportunities to make some good stuff happen this week. So, uh trying to focus on that and not worry too much about the negatives of recent That’s smart. uh to f to focus on the positives. Uh in a broader sense of of what you do as as a member of the PGA Tour, Danny, how important is it to society to have PGA Tour players? What do you feel your role is? Um I mean, I think that’s something I I’m still figuring out to an extent. Um, I mean, hope hopefully this year a little bit of my story just shows that um, the road to road to success, the road to wherever you want to go um, isn’t, you know, isn’t always linear. I think most people have a a sense of that. Um, but hopefully kind of my path shows that. And it’s uh you know, you don’t have to be the most talented teenager or college player. If you can just stack stack years of hard work and progress and just keep getting better in whatever your discipline is, you can you can get to where you want to go. What do you feel is a higher virtue then, talent or tenacity? Um, I mean I I would say definitely tenacity, but but obviously you need a certain amount of talent to, you know, get to where you want to go. Um, some some sports more than others. Um, obviously if you’re 5 foot three, you’re not going to make it in the NBA. I think golf is a little more uh open to um open to everybody. I mean, right, you do need some some talent for sure. Um, but I think it’s more about grit and tenacity than a lot of other sports, which I think is what makes it great. What caused you I know it was some years ago now, but what caused you to step away from the game? What happened? Um, I just I just wasn’t enjoying the work aspect of it. Um, I think it’s easy to enjoy playing playing good golf and having having good results, but no, I just wasn’t enjoying uh the work aspect of it. I didn’t feel um I wasn’t feeling any sense of purpose in what I was doing. Um, which is a little a little bit about what you just asked me about, like what is a what do PGA Tour players give to to, you know, the world, I guess. Um, and I still I still think I’m figuring that question out. Um, but I think through my time away, I knew that uh if I just kept going, I would figure it out as I went. Um, that was like the feeling I had uh internally. So, you know, hopefully hopefully I do continue to figure that out as we go. I mean, you became a waiter, right? Was it Yeah. But was it a thought that the grass is always greener and I’ll take I’ll take that gig or was that a starting point? And what did you learn from serving people food and taking orders and find out someone wanted this sent back because it was overcooked? I mean, how did that change your perspective and bring back the gratitude for the game? Um, so that came about because I knew I I knew if I was going to try and get another degree because that’s what I was thinking about doing was going back to school, I was going to have to financially support that myself. Um, so I was like, okay, let’s see if I can um, you know, go do a part-time job and not completely hate it. See if I can actually enjoy it a little bit. And I thought doing something um kind of in the service industry would be good um just to work on people skills some um just be exposed to you know different people um kind of get out of my golf bubble a little bit and I think it it did all those things but no it’s hard it was hard work though you know um I think it makes hitting balls on the range seem a little easier um you know it’s a lot it’s a lot easier to work on something, you know, feel like you’re working towards something than just working for a paycheck. So, I’m thankful that um I’m able to do that every day on the PGA Tour. Very cool. If you had a 10 scale, where would you put your one to 10 scale? Where would you put your life right now on that scale? Um probably about a nine. You know, it’s not a 10 because it’s always like, oh, it could be, you know, maybe it’ll be better tomorrow. Who knows, right? Uh, but at the same time, I’m pretty grateful to uh be where I am today. So, yeah, I think I think nine’s about right. Yeah, I think I think it could be a 10 this Sunday for you, too, because we’re feeling some good things and the vibes are very good. As Don mentioned to you, our my producer, when he was booking you for the show today, we always like to ask people about their sponsors. It’s our way of saying thank you. Uh, who have you aligned yourself with? Um, I think The biggest and most important one would be Titus. I’ve been with them since since high school and they’ve always been always been there for me. Always been supportive even when I uh you know was struggling to get status back on Cornferry and even the Canadian tour uh several years ago. So you know they never stopped supporting me and I’m thankful for that. Um another one is Primo Apparel. They’ve been really helpful to me the last few years. Uh even on condition when I just had conditional cornfairy status, they helped me out. So I’m thankful thankful to them for that. Uh another one has been Wilson Cadillac. This year they just hooked me up with a nice new XT6. So uh happy to be driving that at home. That’s nice. Um and from a sponsor standpoint, those are the big ones. Um I mean I feel like I should mention my my parents as well. They’re not necessarily a sponsor, but they’ve been my biggest supporter since I was a little kid. So, um, yeah. Very neat. We only have seconds left here. Danny, what was your nickname in college? God, I had a lot of them actually. Um, let’s see. One of them was uh the ghost, which my friend Derek Bar gave me because I would just uh very quietly sneak in the rooms, I guess, and people wouldn’t notice me. So, he started calling me the ghost one day. And I like to think that also means I like can sneak up leaderboards without people noticing. But that’s more my interpretation. We’re probably going to have to end it there, Danny, because we’re just about to sign off the air. That was why I was asked cuz I saw some place that they called you the ghost and I was like that is perfect for a guy to do just what you said, sneak up that leaderboard. Thank you so much for joining. It was good to see you. Good luck this week.
