WGC ANDERSEN CONSULTING MATCH PLAY CHAMPIONSHIP MEDIA CONFERENCE

JEFF ADAMS: My name is Jeff Adams, Media Director for the World Golf Championships and the Andersen Consulting Match Play Championship. We thank you for coming. We thank La Costa for hosting us this morning. Eight months ago we were at La Costa launched very successfully the World Golf Championships and the Andersen Consulting Match Play Championship and then four months from now we will be back here at La Costa February 21 to 27 for the second playing of the and Andersen Consulting Match Play Championship. A few facts about the tournament: First of all, it is organized and conducted by the International Federation of PGA Tours which is comprised of the European Tour, the PGA TOUR, the PGA TOUR of Australasia, the Japan Golf Tour and the Southern Africa Tour. The event will be played February 21 through 27. The field is surprised of the Top-64 available players off the Official World Golf Ranking. Last year's field was a premier field; one of the best of the year. It is a Match Play format. It is the only one of its kind that all five Tours have representation in. La Costa, of course, will be the host again this year. Our defending champion is with us today, Jeff Maggert of The Woodlands, Texas, U.S.A.. He will be back in February to defend. We all remember his dramatics on Sunday, February 28th, on that 38th hole. I'd like to just introduce the gentlemen who are up on the dias who you will be hearing from in addition to one other gentleman who you will be hearing from. Our tournament director is Michael Garten; PGA TOUR Commissioner Tim Finchem representing the International Federation of PGA Tours; Jim Murphy, to his right, Global Managing Director, Marketing and Communications for Andersen Consulting. And, of course, Jeff Maggert to Jim's right. I just want to give you a quick overview on the program. We have got an announcement to make which the Commissioner will make and be joined by Jim and Jeff. Then we will open it up to some questions. We will also hear from Michael Garten, as I said, in just a minute. We do have an important announcement, as I said, that Tim will make and we will have some photo opportunities and one-on-one opportunities when we close out at the end in about 30 minutes or so. I'd like to introduce the tournament director for the event. Michael has been here at the tournament for about six months. He is a Cal State Fullerton Grad; a native Californian and also a USC graduate degree as well. May I introduce Michael Garten to come for a few minutes. (APPLAUSE).

MICHAEL GARTEN: Thank you, Jeff. As I said to Jeff a few minutes, we need to including the Cal State University system in this introduction. Let me start off by saying a simple thank you to all the members of the media that are here with us today. I very much appreciate your participation in today's 2000 Andersen Consulting Match Play Championship Media Day and your coverage of the event coming up this next February 2000. On that note, Jeff gave to you enough information in terms of some personal background, but I am indeed from southern California; haven't had a chance yet to meet but probably a handful you of the media, but I am definitely looking forward to meeting the rest of you along the way as he we head up to the event. If there is anything I can do or anyone on the championship staff here at La Costa to assist you in the coverage of the event, please do not hesitate to ever call me or anyone on the staff. We would be happy to help out. Along the lines of thank yous, in a little bit of a public form here, I want to say thank you to La Costa Resort and Spa and specifically the president here, and the general manager. They have been incredibly supportive as a partner on the event and helping me transition here into the new job and I very much appreciate that. One reminder that I wanted to make, in the media kit today you will have a press release that Jeff Adams was kind enough to put together that summarizes the charitable contribution from the event this past February and it is $500,000. A couple of the recipients include the First Tee Program; the Pro Kids Golf Academy and Learning Center here in San Diego. I believe we have Ernie Wright, the chairman of the board today. Thanks, Ernie, for being here. And about 30 different organizations based throughout the greater San Diego area. Please if you will take a look at that when you get a chance, it would be appreciated. I just want to make a couple of brief comments in regards to the event this next February before we move on to a couple OF special announcements. That is - I take off my tournament director hat here for a minute, and I have always said for better or for worse, consider myself to be in at that upper one or two percentile of sports fans and again, for better or for worse, sometimes it is just useless information, but I really believe that the World Golf Championships is an event and just the business of sports has gained an incredible amount of momentum during the 1999 calendar year. I think a lot of that is based on the success of the Andersen Consulting Match Play Championship this past February; Jeff Maggert having an absolutely brilliant performance here; the NEC Invitational I thought went extremely well. I have to be back there that in Akron, Ohio, the Firestone Country Club. And I know all of us as staff looking forward to the event being equally successful over in Spain at Valderrama at the American Express Championship. So, just in general, the people that I deal with day-to-day, whether it is a corporate client; someone from the general public as a potential patron of the event, I hear comments time and time again that they are really looking forward to this event. They enjoy Match Play being part of the PGA TOUR. And I think the field speaks for itself and again I look forward to having all of you out here in February and hopefully we will have even a bigger and better event to come. Last, but not least, it is my privilege to be able to introduce the Commissioner of the PGA TOUR and we are happy to have him here today with us and that is Tim Finchem. (APPLAUSE)

COMMISSIONER FINCHEM: Thank you very much. Nice to be here today and good day to everybody. It is always nice to come back to La Costa, such a wonderful spot for golf and in the history of our golf Championships. Today I am here -- delighted to be here with Jeff and Jim to make a special announcement regarding the World Golf Championships. We are today unveiling the new Andersen Consulting Medal. The International Federation of PGA Tours in partnership with Andersen Consulting creates this award to recognize specific excellence among the competitors in the World Golf Championships on an annual basis starting with 1999. This medal will be awarded to the player who earns the greatest aggregate amount of prize money in the total of the three World Golf Championship events played in 1999 and going forward. The player who is the winner will receive a cash award in addition to the medal of $250,000 and in the winner's name there will be an additional $250,000 donated to The First Tee effort. This year in 1999 obviously we have already played the first two World Golf Championships, the Andersen Consulting Match Play which Jeff won and then the NEC Invitational which was won by Tiger Woods. Those two players sit atop the rankings right now in just money won in World Golf Championships. Jeff is in the lead, but not by much. He is ahead of Tiger by $4,000 as they head to the American Express in Valderrama. We wish him well. We will formally present the medal to the winner at the Andersen Consulting Match Play Championships here at La Costa in February. And on behalf of the Federation of International PGA Tours, I just want to thank Andersen not only for their many years of commitment to Match Play and to golf, but most recently their commitment to the World Golf Championship and now through this medal, further recognition of the importance of playing and succeeding in the World Golf Championships and of course the importance of the First Tee commitment as well. I'd like to ask Jim and Jeff to come up for a minute and help me unveil this medal. I am going to introduce each of these gentlemen to you in a moment, but let me just make some additional comments beyond the recognition of the medal. First of all, from a PGA TOUR perspective and a Federation of PGA Tours' perspective, we were delighted through the course of this year with the results of the World Golf Championships. We were especially pleased with the impact of the Andersen Consulting Match Play and the play of Jeff Maggert and Andrew Magee going into the 36-hole final. We were delighted with the results and the impact of that event. I think there is a number of ways, as I said earlier this morning, to measure the impact and the acceptance among golf fans worldwide starting with the international television distribution to 140 countries and just about uniformly all the reports from our television partners all over the world was that there was tremendous reaction and excitement and interest starting in the middle of the week throughout the weekend all over the world. We had almost 400 members of the media internationally here at La Costa for the Andersen Consulting which is an enormous turnout for media worldwide; which is another indication of its support. We had all-time records. We lost our server a couple of times on pgatour.com trying to keep up with the millions of people who were trying to, through on-line access, keep up -- especially the middle of the week when we had so many matches going on, with the results. And then there is a couple of other ways to measure the impact. One way is when you would go in the locker room during this Championship and see the players who had finished their matches, won their matches, lost their matches, gathered around the television set watching what their peers were doing out on the golf course in their matches is a real good indication of the player interest in the event and, of course, the player comments were uniformly very, very positive. And then as the week progressed we kept getting reports in countless office pools that have been developed since we announced the Top-64 in the rankings - one versus 64; 2 versus 63 - many individuals who called in likened it to what has developed with the NCAA basketball tournament over the last ten years or so. So from every account, anyway you look at it, we had a tremendous success. We were delighted with the crowds here. We were delighted with the staging, and most importantly from our perspective, of course, we are delighted with the reaction by Andersen Consulting which Jim can speak to and, of course, the players believing that there is a role for Match Play in the highest levels of golf. That Match Play should not be discarded as something of the past. That we need to maintain the thread of Match Play from years ago when it really did determine basically every single Championship of significance and it has fallen away for a variety of reasons. But, clearly, there is a place for one very special Match Play event and this format seems to be the format that works the best to maintain Match Play into the future of golf. Just before I introduce Jim, I'd also like to thank La Costa for a great effort that they have undertaken here to prepare this facility as we moved into the World Golf Championship a period earlier in the year. Every single thing that our staff has suggested to improve the golf course from a drainage standpoint; knowing that we wanted good, firm, dry conditions, if at all possible; knowing that we can get some rain earlier in the year here, every single suggestion has been agreed to. Beyond that, the ownership, management and staff of La Costa have gone beyond our suggestions to do additional things to improve the golf course and the playability of the surface; that we couldn't be more pleased with the commitment that they made. In addition, I'd like to thank all the people involved with the Buick Invitational, the Century Club, for their commitment to work together for San Diego to promote both of these tournaments. I guess we are going to be in our 6th decade of involvement in the San Diego area as we turn the corner in January; we have a long history here; we have a long history with the Century Club; we have a great charitable heritage. And we wanted to make sure that we are maximizing the strengths of both of these Championships when it is played here at La Costa, one and one equaling three and certainly the cooperation we have had from the Century Club has been very, very positive. Let me ask Jim to come up in a second. I'd like to just say a couple of things about him. The Andersen Consulting Company made a decision some years ago to commit themselves and support the concept of Match Play when the original World Championship was designed around 16 -- eight players from each of four Tour areas several years ago. They did not hesitate when we brought forward the concept of converting that event to a World Golf Championship event and putting it center stage with the Top-64 players in the world playing. Without their commitment we could not stage this event and present this event to the world at the level that we do. During all of that, Jim Murphy who oversees all of the global marketing, advertising, promotional activity of the company, has been the individual who has been right there making sure that it works for Andersen, but being a real partner with us, in terms of how to make it work; how to present it; how to make it very special. And, frankly, we would not be standing here today saying all these great things about how far we came in just the first event of this first World Golf Championship if it wasn't for that commitment. Jim, I want to thank you personally as a friend and for your commitment over the years and all the people at Andersen for sharing the vision and creating the vision and helping us move in the direction that we are moving. Ladies and gentlemen, Jim Murphy. (APPLAUSE)

JIM MURPHY: Tim, thanks very much. Those are very kind words from you and I am certainly personally pleased to hear them. This is a nice day for us because we have talked about moving into global sports for a long time. We do this because of our connection to our global clients and executives around the world who we work with everyday in the top corporations are golfers mostly and they love the game and we felt that we could play a role that would be a win/win for us and win/win for golf. So when we started our sponsorship that goes back almost five years, with the other tournament, we saw it as a trial both for us and for professional golf. We are very pleased to say that we think the trial was very, very successful witnessed by where we are today. We also said to ourselves, wouldn't it be great to sort of identify a golfer who really is premier in the global stage and how to do this. Well, our first idea was lets name the world's greatest golfer every year. Well, that doesn't quite work with all the rules and regulations of golf, I guess, but I think we have the next closest thing and this is a test of different formats; the best golfers in the word and someone is going to emerge each year as the best one of that. So from our view, we are setting up an award with what we feel would be the world's best golfer. Now in doing this we also felt that we shouldn't be just honoring the golfer. Well, let's honor something else about golf. So the award of $500,000 has been divided between the golfer and in his name to First Tee. So we feel this is a win for golf; it is a win for The First Tee for the youth of the U.S. as they look forward to playing golf in the future and of course, a win for us. So we are very honored to be able to do this and we look forward to seeing all of you as we see the tournament next February and to celebrate with you when the winner of the Valderrama tournament wins this first Andersen Consulting medal. Thank you. (APPLAUSE)

COMMISSIONER FINCHEM: And now the star of this little event, our defending champion, Jeff Maggert is generally recognized as a player who is consistent; beyond any other facet of his game, I think the most important thing is consistency. Jeff has, leading up to this year, seven of the last eight years -- or eight of the last nine years has been involved and made it to THE TOUR Championship which, as you know, is the top-30 players of the year. He is typically averaged in the top fourteen or fifteen players on the PGA TOUR during those years in terms of his money earnings. He is also known for being able to handle difficult golf courses. He is typically in one of the last two or three groups in the major Championships that are set up the most difficult. And as a consequence, hee is a good Match Play player. He played on the 1994 winning Presidents Cup team. He played on the last three Ryder Cup teams, 1995, 1997 and, of course, this year 1999 and part of the team that was involved in the' greatest comeback in the history of team golf. He is, beyond his competitive skills, however, an individual who represents what is best about golf. We often say that the real strength of our sport is the image of our players, the image of integrity, and Jeff represents that quite well. Ladies and gentlemen, our defending champion and the individual who won the first World Golf Championship event, the Andersen Consulting Match Play, Jeff Maggert. Jeff, come on up. (APPLAUSE).

JEFF MAGGERT: I guess the first thing I'd like to say is it is nice to have a chance to come back and do a Media Day since it has been six years since I was defending any type of a tournament, but certainly to come back here and relive some of the great memories I had a few months ago has been fun. Definitely be looking forward to the tournament coming up very quickly now, in about three months time. So it has been really a great year for me; the win here in February really kind of vaulted me into a position to make the Ryder Cup team and to contribute a little bit to the success we had there. Certainly the Match Play format has been very good for me. When this tournament was announced about a year and a half ago I was very much anxious to play the tournament. As Tim mentioned, my game tends to suit the Match Play format. Hopefully I can figure the medal play format a little bit better than I have the last six years, but certainly I am looking forward to coming back here. I am real excited about it and I want to thank Andersen Consulting for putting this event together with the Tours and hopefully -- maybe Tiger can make it a little bit further into the tournament this year, but certainly, you know, I think over the course of four, five years I think amongst players and the fans it is just going to be one of our best tournaments on the Tour. Thank you. (APPLAUSE).

JEFF ADAMS: We are going to open it up for questions right now.

JEFF MAGGERT: Certainly to win the medal it is going to be a great honor. When the season started, you know, thinking about the three World Golf Championships and playing well in all three of them was a top priority on my mind. I don't have the biggest lead on Tiger, that is for sure, so certainly the way I play in Valderrama is going to have a big impact if I have a chance to win. But certainly it will be a great honor if I can win it.

JEFF MAGGERT: I am looking forward to the course. I played very well there in the Ryder Cup in 1997. The team didn't play well in the Ryder Cup, but I thought the golf course was very suitable for my style of game. I feel like it will be a good course for me this time around. As far as how the American players are going to be treated, I assume you are talking about the Ryder Cup issue. Hopefully over time maybe some of that will tend to die down a little bit. But I am looking forward to going and play. I am not going to worry too much about the negative impacts that have been raised surrounding the Ryder Cup.

JEFF MAGGERT: I think any course that we play, some courses are more suited to certain players' games. Certainly the longer hitting players like Tiger Woods and the David Duvals may be a little bit, I wouldn't say at a disadvantage, but they won't be able to take advantage of the length that they have. Certainly they have the ability to play well on that course. I think of all the courses that we could be playing outside of the United States, this one is probably more similar to the style of golf that we are used to playing over here on our Tour. The other advantage or disadvantage that the Americans players will have that the European Tour plays that course an event every year, so a lot of their players have played on that course, seven or eight times on the same course and know the course quite well.

COMMISSIONER FINCHEM: That is precisely one of the reasons why Match Play has faded away because of television. And because, from a tournament standpoint, typically you want a lot of golf out on the weekend and when you only have two matches on Saturday and a match on Sunday, you just don't have enough golf out there to put in front of what modern tournaments can attract by the way of crowds. So there are those and many other reasons. We did talk to television about this. But the fact is that when you have - and we saw it - when you have the Top-64 players in the world, the difference between No. 1 and No. 2 and 63 and 64 is not much. Over the course of a year probably less than a stroke average. Any given day, anything can happen. We saw that and I think that what happened this year was that the strength in the middle of the week with so many matches creates so much interest that it plays into the weekend. And I think what the fans learned in watching the 36-hole final this year was that Match Play is extremely compelling when the play is good. When you had Andrew and Jeff playing like they played all day long, it was extremely compelling golf. So as I said earlier, I think there is a place for Match Play. I think it is important to maintain the thread of Match Play in golf at the highest level and this particular format seems to be a winner. So we are delighted with that. So is television. Television is very pleased.

COMMISSIONER FINCHEM: Playing the quarter finals on Saturday is an option we are looking at. There are some logistical difficulties with that. It puts more pressure on us to get the tournament finished if we have weather problems, we have some television issues to deal with, but it is an option. I am not saying for certain it will happen but it certainly is an option for us.

JEFF MAGGERT: Certainly I think so, you know, the players are very competitive. Ryder Cup has become very competitive amongst players. I think both sides appreciate the competitiveness, the emotions that go with it. I think it is the first time where fans and media have really kind of jumped on the bandwagon gone, so to speak, and to experience all that. So in some regards I'd like to see the level of enthusiasm and competitiveness stay where it is at. I'd hate to see it go down, but certainly as Tim mentioned earlier this morning at breakfast, there is always a few bad apples in a crowd that kind of spoil it for everybody. If we can do a better job of maintaining the conduct of those few I think the event is going to be even bigger and better in the years to come.

JEFF MAGGERT: I wasn't there. I was still playing my match, not playing very well, I mind you, but I was on the green, 15th green, I was getting ready to lose my match to Paul Lawrie. I heard the roar go up. At that point I just -- I thought the winning point had beat -- we had clinched it, I thought the matches were pretty much a moot point. I didn't realize that Jose still had a putt left to tie that hole. I just heard the reaction of the crowd and the fans -- and really, I never knew of the controversy of what happened until really an hour or so after the matches were over when I went in for the press conference.

COMMISSIONER FINCHEM: No, this award was established for the reasons that Jim and I suggested. It was just to recognize superior play in these Championships. It was discussed at some length the year prior to the announcement of the World Golf Championships. We are not concerned about the field quality in these World Golf Championships. We are delighted with the players support of them. So, no.

JEFF MAGGERT: Hopefully it is a little left or right, 50 yards down is okay. Actually in Match Play I really feel like the pressure can be put on your opponent. If you are the first player to play to the green, hit your approach shots to the green, hit the ball close to the pin so I feel like it is an advantage sometimes to be the shorter driver in a match. Certainly if Tiger is playing well and he is driving it 40 yards past and he is in the fairway on every hole, he has got an advantage. But I feel like I can take that advantage away by hitting first to the greens, hitting good shots close to the hole because it puts the pressure on your opponent. There is a lot of mental aspects of Match Play that maybe don't come out in a medal play event and certainly from a player's standpoint, at least from my standpoint, the mental strategy of a match is very entertaining, very fun. I really think all the players enjoy Match Play immensely. The only problem is, is every match is do or die. So if you win, you are in a great mood and you are happy. And if you lose, you are disgusted because you have got to pack your bags and leave town. But I think overall all the players really enjoy playing in the Match Play tournament.

JEFF MAGGERT: I don't know if it has changed my approach to the game. I still approach it the same every day. I think -- I don't feel the pressure on myself to win. Certainly a lot of that is self-inflicted and a lot of it is brought about by the media and what they write. I have played some really good golf since I have been on Tour, a lot of good things that I am proud of the way I played. Certainly I wish that I could have won a few more times over the past nine years, but it is a tough game out there. A lot of good players and there is a lot of young players that come onto the Tour every year that are very competitive and the depth that we experience week-in and week-out it is difficult to win. But to come out and play well consistently week-in and week-out is very satisfying to me. Hopefully before my career is over I am going to have a few more wins under my belt. It really doesn't affect the way I have approached the way I go about things.

COMMISSIONER FINCHEM: Very. It was good that it was the kind of match it was. If it had been 5 and 4, there would have been a lot of disappointed people. But the fact that it was exciting, it went late, there was a lot of drama, and the play was just outstanding. I mean, we -- I guess we walked most of the second 18, this is very, very good golf and the fans appreciate that and television appreciates it. So worked out quite well. As I have said before, Jeff and Andrew put on a great show that day and that contributed to the success that we are all talking about here today.

JEFF ADAMS: A couple of closing comments, I just want to remind folks our friends in the media that on November 1 tickets will go on sale for the event. And we will be getting some information out to you on that date so please be on the lookout for it. If you can help us spread the word we would certainly appreciate that. We also have press kits that will be available on your way out. The ladies will pass them out to you. Also, in November, we will have media credential applications forms that will go out, so be on the lookout for those as well. Today's press conference is available on pgatour.com in transcript form so if you need any follow-up it is available through pgatour.com. We are going to take a few photos before we end and if there is any other questions on a one-on-one that anybody needs, Tim and Jim and Jeff will be available for a little while longer. I want to thank everybody for attending. I want to thank La Costa for being a wonderful host; look forward to seeing them in February. We also thank Jim, Jeff, and the Commissioner, and Michael Garten, our tournament director. Thanks for coming, everybody. We will get a few photographs here in front. By the way, everybody is going out to play golf; I think you got the right day for it. Thanks for everything. (APPLAUSE)