Jimmy Walker shoots for the stars

Jimmy Walker’s best shots haven’t always come on a golf course, or even during the day.

Walker, who is making his Mas­ters Tournament debut after winning the first three PGA Tour events of his career this season, has a hobby that takes him away from the course and into the night sky.
Walker is an avid astrophotographer. He practices taking photos of objects deep in space such as galaxies.

He said he picked up the hobby after buying and playing with a telescope in his backyard. Walker now has a portfolio of images with stars and galaxies in varying colors and sizes.

“With my personality to want to be good at something, I just took it to a whole other level and learned a lot, read a lot, practiced a lot,” he said. “It’s evolved to me moving all my stuff out to New Mexico, where it sits on top a mountain and fires away every night.”
Walker, who lives in San Antonio, said he keeps the telescope operating during Masters Week.

“All I’m doing is taking pretty pictures, but it’s difficult and tough to do,” he said. “I’ll see an object and think, ‘Wow, that looks like fun. I’m going to go take a shot at that one and see if I can do better.’ ”
After a winless seven-year career on the PGA Tour, Walker has quite a season going. He has made 12 of 13 cuts to go with his three wins and one other top-10 finish.

The 35-year-old has experience at Augus­ta National Golf Club despite this being his first Masters. He said he played the course three years ago, then returned in De­cem­ber and two other times more than three weeks ago.

“It’s probably one of the first places that you go and you play it for the first time, but you felt like you’ve played it quite a few times just from all the tournaments you’ve watched,” he said.