Danny Walker looks over a tee shot on the 4th hole during the first round of the Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines’ South Course on Wednesday in La Jolla, California.
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Rookie Danny Walker added two new clubs to his bag this week in just his fourth career PGA Tour start. So far it has been paid.
Walker started it Open Farmers Insurance with a seven-under 65 on Wednesday in La Jolla, Calif., bouncing him into a tie for second and two strokes behind the first-round leader Ludwig Aberg.
Walker, 29, also played Torrey Pines’ South Course on Wednesday – often the more difficult of the two – and is the only player in the top seven who did not start on the North Course.
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“It was just beautiful fairways and greens,” Walker said. “One of those days when the driver was working, it never really forced the problem there. I was really just trying to hit the middle of the green a lot and then I dropped a few shots and that’s how I got a good score. I think I hit every green, which is rare to do, especially on such a challenging course. This is really what made me have a bad day. And then he made some shots.”
Walker He did actually hit every green in regulation, and he became the 12th player to do so on the South Course since 1980 (and the first since Martin Laird in 2019). But last-minute changes to the driver and his shooter were also evident.
He had a driver fit for Titleist on Sunday and put a new one in the bag for this week, and he also switched to another driver on Tuesday, a new Scotty Cameron blade.
“She only has one point at the top,” Walker said. “It really helped me free up my swing and not try to get my layup perfect where I could focus more on my line and the hole and not like the ball and my putt, so it helped a lot to free me up.”
Walker did not win on the Korn Ferry Tour last season, but he finished 28th in the points standings, which was enough to earn him membership on the PGA Tour for 2025 (top 30 finishes). He opened the season with missed cuts at the Sony Open and American Express, although this week is off to a more promising start.
“Every time you move on to a new tournament and move up, it’s always a little bit of an adjustment,” he said. “It’s easy to think you have to work harder, do more, be more perfect. The first two weeks I was definitely stressing myself out a lot. This was the first day that I really just forced myself to relax and play golf and enjoy the day and just look at the targets and hit the shots and not worry too much. A lot of it was just, yeah, getting into the right headspace, so it took two weeks.”
