Danny Walker after thir round THE PLAYERS Championship. His story.
did you did you catch a a look at yourself on the leaderboard on the your name um I did yeah on 17 it’s kind of hard to avoid so I saw I was in ninth or I think at the time so I did see that yeah can you describe the conditions at the start of the round compared to the end of the round and maybe when they started to pick up yeah definitely early in the round uh there wasn’t too much win so it was a little more scorable um probably really started picking up towards the end of the front nine maybe seven or eight yeah what was the key for you to I guess after yesterday you know seeing the way they ended the couple Bogies having to wait and watch and see if if you were going to make it what was the key to being able to turn around that and come back with a boogey free round and some pretty windy conditions um I mean it’s always a little stressful when you’re right on the cut line and then you know once you make the weekend it’s easy to kind of free it up because you don’t have anything to lose like I can’t go backwards you know you can only move forwards at that point um and I I played really well the last 10 holes or so uh yesterday to finish the round um and was able to just keep that ball striking momentum going uh into today what’s the week what’s the week been oh has it had a chance to sink in I mean that you’ve gone from three days ago not know if you’re going to play here to now being for now top 10 at the Players Championship um a little bit but not really it probably will more over the next few days um yeah uh feels pretty good yeah I apologize you’ve had to say this I’m sure many times already but can you sort of talk us through again finding out that you’re getting in the field what it meant to you all that stuff yeah this I wanted to play this event um my whole life especially like the last several years living in Jacksonville um this feels like my hometown event in a lot of ways um yeah and especially watch watching it last year um watching some of my friends play I just wanted to get in this year so much um and then actually getting in it’s just a yeah it’s an accomplishment of a goal so a big goal where were you when you got a phone call and I was in the locker room in the restroom yeah had to take that phone call someone says you may have cried uh I mean if one tier csil is crying yes yeah sure on that uh Hometown front uh when did you move to Jacksonville and talk to me through that that decision uh I know a lot of young golfers are kind of doing that and it makes a lot of sense for him yeah so I moved here um on my during my first year on corn fery in 2019 probably end end of the summer or so I’d been uh out of school for almost a year and had been living at home for a little bit uh just wanted to find the best place for me to practice and get better and this seemed like the place to go especially with uh everything being free out here here um and playing professional golf early on could be expensive so that was that was a big draw just great free practice facilities and a bunch of other Pros to play with how much do you kind of attribute that decision to to your ability to make this rise kind of through the ranks where you’re at yeah it’s definitely a piece of it for sure um yeah it helps being able to play against guys who are better than you and and learn from them and get better so I’ve been able to do that here in you ended up getting play Jord speed Clark for a little bit and Shane Lowry again today I kind of got thrown right into the defense I I sure did what was it like at first and then did it get easier yeah it was uh a little surreal I mean I’d never met any any of those guys um so it was nice just to meet them and get that out of the way and like okay now we can go play golf um but the first hole or so I was pretty nervous um and then was able to find some Rhythm after that Jimmy Stanger return the favor this year he did yeah he’s out out here following after I followed him last year so I don’t know how big your gallery was where was there any did you hear him with any encouragement or was any interaction with him while you’re out there uh I definitely heard him some yesterday for sure yeah but it was definitely interesting I didn’t hear like the started around Thursday all the like I only heard cheers for the other guys and then towards the end I started to hear some more from myself which was kind of cool I guess maybe people started to figure out who I was a little bit it’s only supposed to get worse as the day goes on where would you guess you might be at Day end oh gosh I don’t know um maybe close to where I am now like I it’s really hard to tell I don’t know just how if it really depends on whether the wind drives the greens out or not because if they stay soft it’s still semis scorable um but if they start to dry out a little bit then things can turn uh the other way based on how the closing po were playing if you were teing off now what score would you comfortable with happy with I think anything under par would be I’d be comfortable with that’d be a solid round what’ you hit off 18 was it uh I hit three-wood those three M straight down pretty much yeah yeah I’ve never hit three-wood that far in that hole usually I hit driver like 40 yards behind that how how often do you play out here what I mean this is where I play more than anywhere else so I mean I probably played here 100 times or close to it is this the most wind you ever had to deal with play 17 18 here um no I’ve had some crazier days out here for sure um but I’ve never played 17 that downwind where you’re like that’s a little scary worrying whether it’s even going to hold on that first bounce looked like you made one long punt otherwise just kind of took advantage of the holes that you have to was it you feel like you had good control of your ball on the wind or what was the key to today yeah I did it was just a really really good solid ball striking day where I was sitting it solid I was was hitting my start lines um yeah that was that was the key just a good ball striking day what do you do the rest of the day uh probably take a nap I’m PR or try to uh I didn’t get a lot of sleep last night so see if I can make up for that awesome thank you D yeah thank you guys
