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PGA CHAMPIONSHIPAugust 10, 2014Kerry HaighLOUISVILLE, KENTUCKY KELLY ELBIN: We are joined by Kerry Haigh, The PGA of America's Chief Championships Officer. Kerry, we had a very challenging four days with a lot of rain, more than two inches fell during the week here at Valhalla Golf Club in Louisville. Comments, please, about the course conditions today, and open up for any questions once Kerry has a statement to make. KERRY HAIGH: Okay, thanks, Kelly. Just what a great championship. The most exciting day's golf I've seen in a long time, and certainly it had its challenges with the rain and the weather, and could not be happier with the way things worked out. Great champion. And the golf course yet again showed what exciting golf it can show us all. Q. Is it unusual enough to see basically to see a four‑ball on the 18th hole, but whose decision was it to allow Rory to play his second shot, and was that at all fair to Phil and Rickie to take them out of the rhythm of the hole and strategy and everything else? KERRY HAIGH: Yeah, I heard there was some questions on that. So I asked our tour officials concerned and Bryan Jones was Rickie and Ron Hickman was with Rory and Bernd. On the tee on 18, I think Bernd asked, could they play as a group of four, and the official on the tee said, no, you can't do that. But the players talked and said, well, you can certainly stand aside and the second‑‑ or the final group could play up and hit their tee shots, which is what happened. Q. I think the second shot was a bigger concern. KERRY HAIGH: Yeah, the second shot, it's my understanding that, again, Bernd said, could they walk up as a four, or words to that effect; I wasn't there, so I can't exactly say the words. But Rickie and I believe from the official that Rickie and Rory spoke about playing up on the second shot. And ultimately, that is what happened. You know, it was sort of‑‑ if the players agree to it, then certainly the officials allowed it. I did get a call on the tee saying, is it okay for the final group to hit their‑‑ to stand aside and hit their tee shots. We said, well, if the players agree, absolutely, as we do often in suspensions or delays for darkness. Q. Was there any consideration given to moving up the tee times this morning in light of the forecast today? KERRY HAIGH: No, not really. The forecast today was the same as the forecast yesterday, and the forecast yesterday was a reasonable chance of showers and they could be sporadic and either hit us or miss us. Unfortunately the one that hit us was literally only three miles wide, but moved very slowly; had we been to the north or the south, it would have missed us. Unfortunately we got three quarters of an inch, and obviously we saw rain for not very long, and the course was obviously saturated. But no, there was no real consideration given to moving the tee times forward. Q. Can you take us through 15, where Rory McIlroy hits his drive before Rickie Fowler hits his second shot on 15? KERRY HAIGH: Yeah, again, I was not there. I know for a fact that from 16 tee, you cannot see the 15th hole because there's a grandstand that has a backdrop of bunting, so you certainly cannot see anything to the right of the creek from 16 tee. I can't speak for him but I would is a assume that he had assumed everyone had played their second shots to the green. Q. I'm talking on 15, not 16. KERRY HAIGH: Could you repeat the question? Q. Rickie Fowler was trying to hit his second shot on 15. Before he did that, Rory McIlroy teed off. KERRY HAIGH: I think Fowler was hitting his second shot on 16. But the same thing applies. Hitting the tee shot on 16 to the right, when it goes over the grand score right of the creek, you cannot see anything in there from 16 tee. I think Phil Mickelson had hit his second shot in from the fairway, so he had gone to the green. So I would assume that Rory thought it was‑‑ they were both up at the green. They had seen him go down 15 and I assume‑‑ again, I wasn't there, but I assume he thought they had already hit. So there was really no issue at all. Q. Following up to the very first question, Rickie said that he did not know that they were going to hit approach shots in. He said that that was a surprise to him. So I guess he did not discuss that. Is that not how you understood that it went down? KERRY HAIGH: That is not what I was told. But I wasn't there so I can't really comment. Q. Do you think that it would have made the players, Phil and Rickie, uncomfortable at all to have shots coming in like that if they weren't expecting them? KERRY HAIGH: Again, I wasn't there, so it's not really‑‑ my opinion doesn't really matter in that regard. Q. The one question I had otherwise was, what do you think about just all the scoring that went on today and the final scores and all the guys that were under par, and were you satisfied with that and the difficulty and the challenge of the course? KERRY HAIGH: I thought it was the greatest day of golf that we've seen in years, and could not be more pleased or more excited about the excitement. I think it's wonderful golf; for the people that watched it, how enthused they would be; hey, I want to play that game. What better advertisement for the game than seeing the four greatest players probably in the world right now playing to a crowd that was loving it. Could not be happier and more excited about how they performed. Q. Could you just talk about the course and how much water it took and was still playable, and before the new air system was installed, would it have been as receptive? KERRY HAIGH: Would it have been as receptive? Q. Would it have drained as well? KERRY HAIGH: The greens would not have drained as well, no. Certainly new greens with the correct construction, new construction, which was one of the reasons that we did it was to help the drainage and the health of the grass on the greens. Incredibly, after two inches of rain, the greens putted beautifully. Even today after the three quarters of an inch this morning, the ball was still rolling beautifully, which is why the players holed all the putts they did, and it was great excitement. So we could not be happier with the way the course performed, the way it played, and going for 7 in two, 10 in two, all the shots in a spectacular's day of golf. I can't wait to see it in real life. Q. Let's talk about the last couple of holes and every time you've been here for a stroke‑play tournament, it's come down to the last holes, and Jack said that's why he built it like he did. KERRY HAIGH: It's a beautiful finishing hole, because even the tee shot, it's a pretty wide fairway, but when the pressure is on, the water on the right does come into play and with the soft conditions, the ball stayed out of the water today. The same shots in The Ryder Cup all went into the water, if you remember. But the green, that deep flag on that center location, if you go pin‑high going for the green in two, you have probably one of the most difficult chips in golf to get up‑and‑down, and that's what happened in the '96 PGA Championship and happened again today. It's a beautiful finishing hole. It gives you a chance of an eagle, but as you saw, it can be punishing. So yeah, it's a great finishing hole. Q. Today there were guys that had casual water, situations where there drop would basically be in the rough. Is that something that you can address? I know you don't want to put ball‑in‑hand, but I don't see why you have guys in situations where they have to play out of water or drop in the rough. KERRY HAIGH: It was certainly wet out there as we know. We had a great superintendent and his crew and his staff, Roger Meier, did an outstanding job getting of the water off the course after three quarters of an inch of rain. They worked for an hour and a half nonstop, squeegeeing and moving the water, etc., so that our aim was to create the course to be playable enough so that there were areas close enough in the same condition ideally to be able to play. And yeah, it's unfortunate and it's tough on everyone. Nobody likes playing in the casual water and the mud on the balls. But it's part of the game. You know, that's what the rules are about. You have the casual water to get out of it, and so long as within reason, you can find an area drop, and you can do that or you don't have to drop. If we move ‑‑ we focused all the water movement to get it away from the landing areas; so that ideally the players still had that option to play it as it laid, as well as finding the nearest point of relief that was dry. Q. Going back to the idea of adjusting the start, the R&A broke like a century tradition going to split tees based on the forecast. The TOUR has been more selective about adjusting their starting times based on the forecast. You folks were burned at Baltusrol by not adjusting to the forecast and even today was a little bit of a fire drill at the end to get this in. Under all those circumstances, isn't there at least a consideration of a little more of a cushion when you stare at the possibility of this kind of circumstance going forward? Aren't you sort of playing with fire? KERRY HAIGH: There have been occasions where we have split tees in the PGA Championship. Hazeltine, I believe, in 2009 we split tees after a rain delay. So it's not something that we are opposed to do. I think as I said earlier, the forecast was not by any means a guarantee of us being hit by weather. It was isolated, pop‑up showers and we were on top of low pressure and we could have had rain in the morning and miss it, and almost did miss it. We had 45 minutes of a heavy downpour at whatever time it was, ten o'clock in the morning. We'll certainly look, and if there was a huge front coming through that was absolutely guaranteeing rain, we would consider, you know, the best option for the running of a major championship. Q. The one sign that's not up, 2021; is Valhalla up next for that? KERRY HAIGH: I think as we spoke about on Wednesday, as we do at every championship, we kind of try and take a deep breath and inhale, and then we will review everything great that happened here this week and make a decision down the road as to the venue for 2021 and/or other years beyond that. KELLY ELBIN: Kerry Haigh of The PGA of America, thank you very much. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports ' |
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