Danny Walker went from outside the field to a player championship contender in just a few hours.
Jared C. Tilton | Getty Images
It didn’t take a lot on Thursday morning at the player championship to realize Danny Walker It was abroad.
“This is Spieth,” whispered a fan strangely from the 7th green side on the TPC saw. “And that’s Wynham Clark. But who is what? Walker ??? “
The answer was not available to the fan, who tightened and continued with his day. But then Danny Walker poured into a long bird blow, and suddenly a whole bunch of fans were applauding for the baby with a bunch of blonde hair they did not know.
The player championship week has a funny way to do it with the people of Sawgrass TPC. PGA Tour has long proud of himself to reserve players with one of The strongest areas of golfAnd that means that invitations are sent to all ways of individuals who otherwise cannot give up on the ways of a large PGA Tour event. Danny Walker is one of those players. A graduate of Korn Ferry Tour and PGA Tour Tour, Walker entered a player champion in the week. Not just to make The tournament event of the tournament, but to get into the field at all.
But then, 90 minutes before his scheduled schedule 8:46 am on Thursday, Jason Day withdrew from the event, leaving an open place in one of the marquee trios for two days, alongside Spieth and Clark. Walker, a Jacksonville locals, was first from pine … or porcelain.
“I was in the closet room in the bathroom (when I got the call),” Walker said with a grin on Saturday evening. “Had to get that call.”
And take it, he did. Within minutes of receiving the ring, Walker was out in the rank preparing for his opening round. He would be at TPC Sawgrass “just in the case” he got the call on the field, and the time of the WD of the day meant that he only needed to move his planned heat again for 20 minutes. Before leaving for the course, he returned to the parking lot for a moment of meditation.
“I wanted to play at this event since I was a little kid, especially living here in the country,” Walker said on Thursday. “Honestly, I went and sat in my car for a few minutes later and just a kind of let me hit me a little, maybe let it go out. But no, it was all great. I was just excited.”
Danny Walker was not in the player championship field up to 90 minutes before his 8:46 pm.
His tour suffered an unbearable start as a round of opening 73 left it on the wrong side of the line, but the high water pairing gave Walker an increased dose of the moment. He would depend on the big weapons on Thursday, and he could do it again on Friday. When the moment arrived, Bradenton, Fla., The resident responded to the bell. He shot 70 and made the number line. He followed that performance with his round of the week, a Saturday 66 to throw one of the last players on the field in one of the last groups of the field.
Only confronted with the fourth Sunday of the PGA on Sunday of his life in one of the most fun challenges of the game, Walker encountered courage, shooting a 2-nine 70 to push himself further into the manager’s table. When the dust settled, it was T6, good enough for the best completion of his career in PGA Tour. A week that started without the weekend plans had ended with the biggest salary of Walker’s Young Tour’s life, PGA Tour Life, $ 843,750.
“I would think (it’s more than my income in PGA Tour),” he said with another wild Sunday at night. “Not even a year and a half ago, I had little or without money in my bank account. It’s a big difference.”
It was a successful week several ways for Walker, though he left on Sunday only a few shy shots of a play -off between Rory Mcilroy and JJ Spaun. Walker will collect nearly three times the payment of the FedEx Cup standard point for its completion of the T6 (275 in 100 in a standard tournament)-taking a large incentive for his hopes to go down to the top-100-00s that runs in 2026.
Just just the first step of many people towards a childhood dream of Walker, a former golf player 29-year-old Uva who briefly flirted with a career as an astrophysicist. But that dream received a sudden incentive on his hometown tour this weekend.
“I don’t know how to say else,” he said on Sunday, with a wide eye. “Surreal is a good word.”
As he closed at the end of his round on Sunday, Walker said he noticed a change: fans had begun to know him. He smiled once again as he referred to the number of comments in his polo.
“Certainly a lot of comments there,” he said. “It was extremely similar to the colors of Jaguars, which was a good coincidence.”
One week in PGA Tour can change your life, but as the sun settles Sunday evening at the player championship, the most dramatic development had no connection to the money.
For the first time in his PGA Tour life, Danny Walker belonged.
James Colgan
Golfit.com editor
James Colan is a news editor of news and features in Golf, writing stories on the website and magazine. He manages the hot germ, golf media vertical and uses his experience on camera across brand platforms. Before entering Golf, James graduated from Siracuse University, during which time he was a caddy scholarship receiver (and Astuta Looper) in Long Island, where he is. He can be reached on James.colgan@golf.com.
