BELL CANADIAN OPEN MEDIA DAY

August 2, 2005

Mike Carroll

Chris DiMarco

Bill Paul

Loring Phinney

Ken Woods

MEDIA DAY

LORING PHINNEY: I'll keep this relatively short. It's a real pleasure to be here today as we begin to share with you the details and the field for this year's Bell Canadian Open here at Shaughnessy. As Bell Canada grows in the west, we are very proud that we could play a role and bring the tournament back to British Columbia after almost 40 years. It's important to us that this 100-year-old tournament is truly national, and that means bringing into it as many Canadians as possible. The Bell Canadian Open is one of the premiere stops on the PGA TOUR, and winners over the year have ranged from Vijay and Tiger in recent history to legends Lee Trevino and Arnold Palmer in our past. This event will bring significant economic benefits and enthusiasm to the local community. However, one of the legacies that you won't hear about relates to this clubhouse we are in right now. As many of you drove in, you'll notice some trucks down the entranceway making this facilities one of the most wired locations for golf. We are excited about our Olympic building plans for this facility to ensure that this course and this tournament have state-of-the-art technology to support a national and international broadcast, a world-class media center, and a showcase of many of Bell's products and services. Today, this is about the tournament and sharing this great golf course with you, the media. You are all very important to making the Bell Canadian Open a success and we want to make sure to do everything possible to make it a professional and pleasurable experience for you. Most of us who live here in Vancouver do not get a chance to play this course very often, so today should be quite fun. Realizing that the closer we get to September 7, the longer the rough will be, so it's better that we do this earlier than later. I'd like to thank the RCGA and Shaughnessy for their partnership. Our teams work very closely together to ensure that the Bell Canadian Open is a world-class event that brings the highest caliber of golfers to the event. And I would also like to acknowledge the role that Mike Weir plays on a daily basis to assist this tournament in maintaining its premiere time status. Mike is a great Canadian and great ambassador, and we are proud of our long-standing relationship with him. With that, I'll wish you a great day and turn it back.

KEN WOODS: Thank you, Anthony. On behalf of Shaughnessy, the members and the staff, I'd like to welcome you all. We have a great day and I'm going to talk about three things very briefly, the course, the volunteers and a little bit about a charity event that we are doing. First of all, the golf course, the golf course opened in 1960 and we held the Canadian Open in 1966. The golf course at that point, I think it measured 6,910 yards, a par 71, was considered to be too long at that period of time. This year it's going to play 7,010 yards and it will be a par 70. It will be interesting to see how things shape up. In order to prepare the golf course for this tournament, we started in 2001 on a budget of necessary things to do of about $350,000, and we have spent over $2 million of doing things that are going to be a benefit to the members, as well. What have we done? We removed two tee trees on the first hole to sort of facilitate it being a par 4 instead of a par 5. We trimmed a lot of trees so that we can see the beautiful vistas out here, the water; I think you'll be quite impressed with that today. A lot of conditioning on the golf course in terms of getting the grass right and the rough thick, and it's growing up like Don King's hair right now, and we are working hard to make sure that it is maintained like that for the next five weeks. We put in a new irrigation system and we totally renovated the driving range and the practice facility. But I think what you're going to see today as you play will be a golf course that is a classic design, small greens, very nicely contoured fairways, and I know that the course agronomist, the PGA agronomist was here at the eight-week mark and said that we're ready to go. We just have to grow maybe another inch on the rough and we'll be ready. You're going to enjoy it today. It's an AV Macan design that I don't think many of the Tour players have played many of his designs. So it's going to be a very interesting course that we play, and for you this afternoon. On the volunteer side we have 1,700 volunteers signed up. We needed 1,655, so we have a little bit of a cushion. This was the fastest built probably in the history of the Canadian Open, and the reason for that is we have a wonderful legacy here in Vancouver of PGA and LPGA events and a lot of very talented volunteers who are just keen to get involved, and that certainly turned out to be the case. So we have a number of people, I think there's 300 from Shaughnessy of the 1,700 and we are relying heavily on the experience of the volunteers from other clubs. Just for example, marshalling, we have 600 marshals, so we are hoping that each hole will be marshaled by a different club or a different organization. So it really is a broad community volunteer involvement, and my advice-chair, Norm Leach, is here at the table over there. The charity event, we all like to leave something behind when the tournament goes, and we have decided to host a charity event on August 24th which is going to be the Bell Canadian Open Charity Dinner. It's sponsored by Bell and endorsed by the RCGA and we are selling tickets at $550 a person. It's just a dinner, but we have Rick Mercer, the guest. And what we are hoping to do is raise the profile and raise some funds for skin cancer research. Many of you may not know this, but the Vancouver General Hospital has a skin care center which is a world-class center. It's very excellent in Canada and we are hoping to provide them some support, which I know that golfers can relate to skin, skin problems, as can sailors and skiers. So I think this is something we would like to be able to say we gave something back to the community after all is said and done. Enjoy your day today. I know the wind is blowing. I can only help we have a day like this when September comes around. Thank you.

BILL PAUL: Thank you, Anthony. Beauty before age. I just want to welcome, Chris DiMarco who is the line. Chris is in Colorado right now and he's going to be taking some time out of his busy schedule to join us. As many of you know, Chris was here on May 16, played the golf course and had an opportunity to certainly give me some thoughts and obviously share some of those thoughts. Chris, I would like to welcome you back to Vancouver, back to Shaughnessy, albeit by the phone, and maybe you can just start off, we have a bunch in the media here, the local media from Vancouver and other parts of Canada, and maybe you could just start off and give us your take on Shaughnessy as you saw back on May 16.

CHRIS DiMARCO: It's very, very long and wet so hopefully it might be dry come September. And I know if it was dry, it will definitely playing hard and firm out there. It's extremely long.

BILL PAUL: Chris, when you played, it was a wet day, the air was heavy, it just played longer than what many of us thought. I know some of the amateurs that you had the opportunity to play with, it probably felt about 10,000 yards. But any particular hole that stuck out in your mind that you think is a favorite?

CHRIS DiMARCO: There's a couple out there. No. 11, starting on the back side, No. 10, is just an awesome golf hole.

BILL PAUL: Any media that want to ask Chris something, we have microphones here; let's not be afraid.

CHRIS DiMARCO: I think it favors the straighter hitter for sure. Because I know the rough will be up and if it's hard and fast, obviously your ball is going to run into the rough more. It also favors the straight hitter in the aspect it's not just going to be a bomber's course. It's not going to be just driver, 2-iron, 3-wood. I think I hit three or four 3-woods that day, you know, on the par 4s. If I can get -- me being not overly long but pretty straight, I can get a lot of mid-irons in my hands, 5- and 6-irons, instead of 2-irons and 3-woods. I think it's going to favor the straighter, shorter hitter for sure. Plus, you have a lot of really big trees there, too. So it's not like you can hit it all over the map. If you hit miss the fairway, you're going to be in the rough, but if you miss it a little further than the rough, you're going to be in a big tree. So it certainly favors a straighter hitter.

CHRIS DiMARCO: You know what, if it played like it did the day we were there, my goodness, even par would have won. If it was hard and fast out, it might be -- I would say 10-under par maybe. It all depends, if the rough is way up and the greens are really fast, that's all you need to do is have rough up and greens fast and that keeps your score right around par.

CHRIS DiMARCO: You know, I think it's pretty similar. I'm playing pretty good. I just haven't played much. I only played Flint last week and the British Open and that's really it since -- I think since Westchester. That's a lot of time off. I'm hitting good. I hit the ball great last week at Flint, except for the last day I struggled a little bit. I putted really good. My putting was very good, so I'm very excited about that, and, you know, going into The INTERNATIONAL this week, which is a course I normally play well at, and then I'm going up to the PGA; I'm looking forward to that.

CHRIS DiMARCO: We've talked about it. I know Vijay loved the golf course. It's funny -- in a press conference -- he said he wanted to know the other 13 courses that were ahead of this course in Canada's top 14, because I can tell you what, I've played a lot of courses in Canada, and I have never played a better one than Shaughnessy. So I really look forward to playing it. And I think that's the word out. I think the word out is that we're telling people that and people are excited about it. People who normally would not go play it are thinking about it, because it being in Vancouver and so far away, guys are motivated and they are going to come out and play when they hear how good the course is.

BILL PAUL: Chris, thank you. We appreciate the time that you took out of your calendar and hope you play well. We'll see you up here in September.

CHRIS DiMARCO: I'm looking forward it, guys, and I'm looking forward to that golf course. See you soon.

MIKE CARROLL: Thank you. I just want to say on behalf of the governors of the RCGA and the executive committee how delighted we are to be coming back to British Columbia for the first time in a PGA TOUR event since 2002, and for the first time since 1966 for the Canadian Open. This is our National Championship, I think, and I know my views are shared by the majority of the governors, that it ought to be played across Canada. So it's very important that we're coming back here. I can assure you that it's not going to take this long again before we're back. We would hope that this will become a regular spot on our rotation, where the Canadian Open rotates across the country. I know that we're going to have a great tournament. We're going to have a lot of people. We're oversold on our corporate hospitality. Our ticket sales are typically Vancouver sales; they are not where we want them to be yet, but we are hoping that by the time the tournament rolls around, they are going to exceed our expectations. If we get a break from the weather and the players who Bill Paul is going to talk to you about in a minute show up, I think we're going to have a great event. So we are all very excited and we hope to make this a regular occurrence. Thank you.

BILL PAUL: Thanks, Anthony. I'd like to welcome everybody to May 16, part two. That's for those that could not be here on May 16. It's great to be back, and I can tell you, we have -- there are really five key elements that are go into putting on a great tournament. One is weather, and of course we always put our tournament chair people involved in that and Ken Woods and Mike Carroll are both in charge of the weather; both have assured us that we'll have weather like that five weeks from now. Two is the corporate support that Mike referenced. In May of 2004, we had a buyer's night and we certainly exceeded what we ever thought we could sell. And, in fact, our corporate skyboxes, we sold all 22 that night and have a wait list. With some of the space that we're challenged with here, we could not spread out, so we employed double-decker skyboxes and have sold 48 skyboxes, all of our marquises, all of our suites, our clubhouse tables, our marquis tables. As Mike said, we still have some tickets and Champion's Club badges left, but from a corporate support standpoint, this community has been overwhelming. Ken mentioned the volunteers. We set a goal to get 1,600 by June 1 which certainly reached. Certainly from outside the ropes, from a community standpoint, from a volunteer standpoint, we have certainly exceeded where we want to be; the enthusiasm is overwhelming. Next is really the golf course. When I started coming out here in 2001, what this golf course is today, it's probably -- it's probably 3,000 percent better. That's not being detrimental to what it was before. But certainly for what Ken Woods and the members have committed to this golf courses, you're going to see what those players saw May 16, I think it's going to be a hell of a venue; one that those guys are going to love; one that they are going to talk about much like they did the Hamilton Golf Club after 2003 and continue to do so today. The question was asked about those guys talking about it, four guys came up, they were picked for a particular reason, their ability, yeah, and Chris, while he may have been short on time today, he's certainly not a shy guy and what he's talked about this golf course has been wonderful. The other element, the City of Vancouver, certainly got a lot of press. And I know we have more wives attending this year's Open than we typically have in any other one. They all want to see Vancouver. We have a few things planned for the wives, a trip to Whistler, and certainly that is met with a great response. The fifth is really the players. We remain optimistic that our field is going to be outstanding. We can't get everybody but we will get a great field here. We're going to start off today by announcing kind of an international field of players which we think is a good representation of different countries from around the world: Stuart Appleby; Peter Lonard, who certainly had a great British Open and won this year at Hilton Head; Geoff Ogilvie who is 52 in the world; Stephen Leaney who was a last-named Presidents Cup team member; from England, Brian Davis; and Justin Rose who had the memorable British Open back when Mark O'Meara won; obviously what I think is the No. 1 player in the world, and that's Vijay Singh from Fiji; Shigeki Maruyama from Japan who will be a favorite here; Craig Perks, former Tournament PLAYERS Championship winner; Carlos Franco; from South Africa, Tim Clark, who is No. 18 in the world and playing very, very well; Rory Sabbatini who really likes slow play; and No. 58 in the world, Trevor Immelman; from South Korea, K.J. Choi; and Kevin Na, though Kevin is a U.S. resident; the popular Jesper Parnevik; and Carl Pettersson who is quite a character; Phillip Price from Wales; and Chris DiMarco; Rich Beem who won the 2002 b PGA Championship; Shaun Micheel, who won the 2003 PGA Championship; Sean O'Hair who is quietly going up the World Rankings won recently at the John Deere and is No. 35 in the world; Chris Riley; Hank Kuehne; and Mark Calcavecchia, who won in Vancouver a number of years ago. There will be a number of other players as we get close. I do want to say that Mike Weir, certainly our No. 1 Canadian player, is excited about this golf course and has been a great part of that May 16, will be here and of course James Lepp and Rich Zokol, both of whom we released on exemptions a number of weeks ago, and obviously James won the NCAA individual championship and is a significant part of our player development program. That is a sampling of where we are today, and as we go on there will be some other players and we think significant announcements in the weeks coming as we get close to the tournament. So, with that, I'll turn it back to Anthony.