Over the weekend, while calling from Puerto Rico, where the PGA Tour’s Puerto Rico Open was being held, Walters did his best to make his interviewer back in Colorado jealous, noting, “You should see the view out of my ‘office window.’”
To be fair, it’s not all roses for Walters. Occasionally losing luggage and missing flights, along with a lot of waiting in airports, are among the drawbacks. But let’s face it: It beats the heck out of digging ditches for a living.
And it doesn’t hurt when one of golf’s elite — Retief Goosen, in this case — gets a lot of TV time over the weekend while using a Yes! putter en route to a runner-up finish in the World Golf CA Championship at Doral. Goosen helped put Yes! Golf on the map when he used a Yes! putter to win his two U.S. Opens (2001 and ‘04).
Walters’ job involves going to tournament sites early in the week before competition begins and making the case for Yes! putters to players who express interest. He encourages Tour pros to compare their putters to Yes’ C-groove technology. With a camera and a laptop, Walters lets players see how they perform with the Yes! putter, and he’ll adjust equipment as necessary to fit a given competitor.
Among the PGA Tour players who have given the Yes! flat-stick at least a brief whirl are Goosen, Colin Montgomerie, Sergio Garcia and Stephen Ames.
Walters and other “reps” can only interact with players on non-competitive days, so he usually works with retailers on Thursdays and Friday.
“Then I fly back (to Denver) Thursday or Friday night, kiss my wife, repack and do the (radio) show,” Walters said.
Then the pattern runs its course again.
The radio program has been a Colorado mainstay for about 15 years, and has moved three times on the dial, including from KKFN to KOA and back. The most recent switch came over the fall/winter, when a seven-year-run on KOA ended. Walters has teamed with Jon Lawrence for the last six years, and will continue with that setup, though Lawrence now normally does the show from his new hometown of Tampa, Fla. “We have such good chemistry, and we needle each other,” Walters said.
The two broadcast the first shows of 2008 from the Denver Golf Expo in February, interviewing two PGA Tour guests via phone — U.S. Ryder Cup captain Paul Azinger and former International and PGA Champion Rich Beem. From April to October, In the Fairway will air from 7 to 9 a.m. on Sundays. Walters and Lawrence hope to broadcast from the Ryder Cup in Kentucky in September.
“Azinger said I could be the assistant (U.S.) captain in charge of food and eating,” Walters said with a chuckle.
Walters doesn’t own his DQ franchises anymore — he sold his second one in 2000 — but they’re part of the reason for his change of careers. Back in the early 1990s, Walters served on the Dairy Queen advertising committee which at that point was working with the Denver Zephyrs minor-league baseball team. The Zephyrs left town when the Colorado Rockies came on the scene, but connections to a couple of former Zephyrs promotions people led Walters to a golf-related gig on a sports show at a small AM radio station. And late in 1993, Walters also started doing TV work for Channel 53.
In 2000, he hooked up with Yes! Golf and started handling a smattering of course ratings each year for Golf Digest.
For Walters, it’s all just a part of life “In the Fairway.”
