1st-round leader Jimmy Walker finds less is more off the tee

When most professional golfers are trying to squeeze every extra yard off the tee, PGA Champion Jimmy Walker has gone the other way.

Walker has scaled his driver length back to 42 inches, more than two inches shorter than the standard length these days. The reason for the switch is simple: Despite claiming his first major at Baltusrol in August, the six-time PGA tour winner finished third last in driving accuracy in 2015-16. Walker hit less than half the fairways, coming in at just 48.31 percent with the big stick.

"I took it over to my buddy's house and he wrapped duct tape around it and he hand-sawed it off with a hacksaw," Walker told Thomas Meagher of golfwrx.com. "He goes, 'How long do you want it?' I said, 'I want you to cut right here.' I didn't know how long it was. I just said, 'Let's try this,' and we went from there. And it was hard to get the weight up. I had to put a lot of lead tape on it to get the weight back up."

Thursday at the SBS Tournament of Champions, Walker hit 11-of-15 fairways en route to an 8-under par 65, that saw him make six birdies and one eagle.

Kapalua isn't the tightest course on tour, but for Walker it's a start toward playing better, more consistent golf.

"But when you're on and you're playing well, and your body feels good, you're in a good frame of mind; you're there for a reason. It's because you're on, and I think you really need to relish that when you're in that situation and enjoy it."