CANON GREATER HARTFORD OPEN

June 27, 2001

Fuzzy Zoeller

COMMISSIONER FINCHEM: Thank you, Bob. And I want to first of all thank our players, Bruce, Allen, Dave and Fuzzy for spending time with us and for taking time from their schedules to do. Also, I want to thank our friends in the media for being here at the World Golf Village and for those of you who are with us by teleconference. As all of you know, last spring we completed our television negotiations on the PGA TOUR future of the television packages. Since that time, we've had a fair amount of dialogue about the future of the PGA TOUR, where we think it can go, and its growth and its demographic base, in particular. During the coming months and as we get into '02, we'll have more to say how we envision that'02, '03, '04, '05, '06 and beyond. On the BUY.COM we are delighted that that tour has continued to strength hen in particular the fact that next year for the first time some of the events on that tour will be played overseas in Australia. We look for that tour to continue to grow and we are deep into a long-term strategic planning phase for that tour, and we'll have a lot more to say about it during the first six months of '02. The key to that strategy is a restructured sponsorship arrangement that will commence no later than '03 and perhaps earlier, and we are looking forward to sharing with you the details of that tour sometime in the first or second quarter of '02. But today, we want to focus on the Senior Tour. The Senior Tour has had two decades now of consistent, solid growth. It is one of the neat things in sports, to see players at ages 50, all the way to 70 and in their 70s continue to compete in this sport at the level that these players compete. As a consequence, it has enjoyed consistent and strong growth. It has a strong sponsorship platform. It has a consistently good fan base and our research tells us that that fan base is as strong today as ever. It also has a caliber of play that continues to improve. This year on the Senior Tour, we were delighted with the addition of the Charles Schwab Cup and that addition brought new and revitaled energy the SENIOR TOUR in just its first year. We are also, parenthetically, delighted that the winner of the Schwab Cup this year, who is with us on the phone today, Allen Doyle, donated his entire $1 million annuity to charities, a number of charities that continues the tradition of charity on the PGA TOUR and the Senior Tour. And Allen, we thank you for that. But in addition to the strengths of the Senior Tour, there are issues that we have to address. The SENIOR TOUR has been fairly consistent in its structure and its application and its communication and its presentation for the last 20 years, and while it has continued to grow and while it has continued to generate increased financial benefits to players. This year is another all-time high and next year will be another all-time high. Nevertheless, the competition for the interests of those fans who have interest in this tour has also grown and that competition is significant. In any entertainment enterprise, entertainment sports being part of that, we are all in competition for the interest of people who would like to participate and share some time with us, but to do so, we have to be competitive. As we entered this year, the 20th year of the Senior Tour, we dedicated ourselves to consider every facet of the Senior Tour, from top to bottom, and consider how we can better compete in the marketplace with this vehicle, for the attention of the millions of individuals around the United States, around the world who have interest in these great players. What emanated from that period of time was a vision, a vision that says to us that this is a way that our fans can be more excited, more involved, more intrigued with the Senior Tour, and also a vision that says: Here are some structural changes that we probably should make to support the vision. Our vision really has three legs and I'll divide them into two sections. First of all, the first two legs of the three are related to the experience; the experience of our fans and the experience of our sponsors. The other leg of the vision has to do with the structure of this tour, how can it be better improved to deliver that experience. The experience we are talking about has two primary themes. One is to allow fans the opportunity to become totally up close and personal with our players. We call it bringing them inside the ropes, and we will be talking today about a number of applications that we think will do just that. The second piece of the vision is, shifting the traditional way the Senior Tour is communicated, which is very similar to the PGA TOUR, in a way that allows the Senior Tour to become a platform for instruction and information that allows our fans who play the game to improve their game, in a comprehensive and systematic way. So we want to do two things. We want our fans to feel like if they interface with this tour on any level, at any medium, that they feel up close and personal; and secondly, if they interface with this tour on any medium, at any level, they are going to learn something about how to improve their games. Those two pieces of the theme, of the overall strategy are key. I want to talk about each of those, and then I want to talk about structural changes that we are going to make to support that vision. As I said, in each of these cases with respect to up close and personal and improving your game, we are talking about a variety of mediums. What I would like to do is share with you some examples of what we are talking about. I should note that all of our focus is on the '03 season and beyond. We will be experimenting during the course of '02 with a number of these applications. We will be bringing on-line some of the structural changes to this tour as early as '02 and many in '03. But the promise is as we start the '03 season, all of what we talk about today will come together and be on-line. As I go through several of these different applications, I want to remind you we are talking about examples of what we are doing, not the entirety of what we will be doing, for interests of time. First of all, let me start with television. With regard to bringing our fans inside the ropes, if they are watching us on television, we will be providing an on-site studio which will bring the viewer up close and personal with players, utilizing that studio before, during, after telecasts, during play, after play, etc. We will be miking players in many instances. We will be increasing the use of on-course interviews and we will be providing those interviewers fan questions and people sitting at home have the opportunity to communicate directly with a player during his round. In the player improvement area, if you are watching on television, you are going to see an instructional theme each week. Each tournament will have a unique instructional theme which will cover a wide variety of applications during the telecast that relate to that theme. In addition, we'll have in-competition interviews that relate to what happened with a shot and how that shot can be applied or learned by our viewers, and we will have players discussing on television after they play information about shots that relate to our theme that week that might have been asked by the viewers or occur to our talent and announcers as questions that would be of relevance to fans at home. On site, on the tournament site, to get our fans on site inside the ropes, we will absolutely allow the gallery to follow the last group after the 15th hole, and we may do a variety of other applications of the same concept. We will have honorary observer drawings for sponsors and fans to provide them inside the rope access and up close and personal ability to watch the play of these players. We will do after-play questions and answers and clinics with players and allow small groups of fans to interrelate with players. In terms of improving your game, if you come to a Senior Tour event, you will see after-play clinics, you will see the use of our on-site television studio, which will have a swing demonstration area. You'll see areas devoted to lessons that are available to you on the property. You will see equipment demonstrations. You will see a variety of things that convey to you the knowledge that if you spend any time at a Senior Tour event, you have the ability to walk away having learned some things that will improve your game. On the Internet, to get individuals who log on Inside the Ropes, there will be a Senior Tour fantasy game and a Senior Tour prediction contest that relates to the competition. We will have e-mail and chat questions with players after play and on weekends. In terms of improving your game, if you log on, you'll be able to search a searchable database of player instruction categorized by player or theme or area of instruction, whichever way you want to approach it. We will provide information on developing strategies and situation analyses, utilizing these great senior players. We will role into a wide variety of applications into the Internet, ShotLink analysis and information that can graphically describe to individuals how to use that information how to improve their games in managing their way around a golf course. In terms of the print medium, we want to get individuals who read about the Senior Tour in magazines and newspapers inside the ropes with a wide variety of player profiles and behind the scenes looks at the Senior Tour and Senior Tour players, whether it be in the PGA TOUR Partners magazine, other national print magazines or national newspapers. If you read about the Senior Tour, you will see in those print capabilities instructional segments tied to the thematics of what is going on over -- if it's a weekly publication or a newspaper, that week; if it's a monthly application, themes that are employed on the Senior Tour during that month, so it all ties together. I want to show you by way of example what one week in terms of -- we said earlier that we would be talking across all mediums, whether it's inside the ropes, or improving your game. This is an example, a chart that gives you some sense of what would happen if the topic of the week was green-side bunker play. On television, we might have Tom Kite holing out a bunker shot at a previous tournament or that week. We might designate a vignette that week to bunker play. We would replay and analyze that Kite shot. We would get his thoughts about the shot, about how to practice for this shot, about how people at home or fans on site could learn how to hit the shot, and direct get viewer input about their level of interest about the shot. On the Internet, in the Pro Tips section of PGATOUR.COM, we would feature green-side bunker play. Fans could e-mail bunker play questions to players in the broadcast booth. On site we would have clinics hosted on bunker play after play on Saturday or during the week. For those fans that register as part of the National Senior Tour Improve Your Game Program, or words to that effect, registered fans would receive personalized e-mail that week talking about tips related to green-side bunker play, and we might have something in USA Today or a similar publication that ties into that week's topic of green-side bunker play. Again, this is just an example of the kind of cross-media concentration we will have so that at the end of the day our fans believe that any time spent on the Senior Tour in any one of those mediums, means they will learn something that can help them improve their game. Our vision is to make fans more excited about the Senior Tour, differentiate our product from the PGA TOUR and give our fans more excitement and our sponsors more value. Now, to support that, we need a process of a tour structure that is stronger than we have today to communicate what we are doing and to generate enthusiasm about what is happening in the Tour itself. To do that, we have recommended and our board has approved in this overall strategy earlier this week some changes in the structure of this tour, which we view as basically sharpening our product. I'm going to just list -- I'm not going to bore you with all of the details, but I am going to list five changes which we think are significant, either in structural changes themselves or in direction. First of all, in the television area, we have worked with our partner, CNBC, to move from largely tape-delay action to live action wherever possible. That will mean that starting in not '03, but in '02, we will have probably three quarters or more of our television time live. We will also be moving away from the current 6:00 to 8:00 window to a mix of air times, all somewhat earlier, some as early as 2:00 to 4:00 in the afternoon, others in the old time frames of 5:00 to 7:00 or thereabouts. Tommy Roy, who manages the NBC production of golf and has for a number of years and is as good as there is in the business, will oversee an a consulting basis a number of production enhancements. In addition to that, we will have a good mix of analyst talent, including a number of people from the current NBC talent group, Joe Inman, Gary Koch, Roger Maltbie and Mark Rolby (ph). Secondly, who plays in our tournaments. We want to increase the percentage of players on the Senior Tour to players who have played PGA TOUR careers, because they have established well-known names with the basic fan base that we seek the attention of. So to that, our board has approved a recommendation to add an eligibility category beginning in '03 which would add six spots, which would increase the size of our fields from 78 to 84. Those six spots will be divided into two groups. Four of the spots would go to a new category of players that who have won at least twice on the PGA TOUR. When you turn 50, you could enter that category if you are not otherwise eligible through all-time money or some other mechanism. If you enter that category, you can remain in that category for two years until your 52nd birthday. A major championship win would count, be the equivalent of three tournament wins for purposes of prioritization within that category. And in addition to that, there would be another two players getting us to sixth, which would be sponsor exemptions, but those sponsor exemptions would be limited or restricted to players who have won at least twice on the PGA TOUR. There is no age limit for those restricted sponsor exemptions. The consequence is, we add six players to a new field of 84 in a typical format on the Senior Tour that have had a significant history of performance on the PGA TOUR, which we think will have the effect of increasing the strength of our field over time. Thirdly, how often do we play and what is our schedule going to be like. We have determined that we would like to avoid head-to-head competition with the PGA TOUR on those weeks when the PGA TOUR has an extensive amount of television and media coverage, i.e., the weeks of the major championships, THE PLAYERS Championship, perhaps one or two of the World Golf Championships. As a consequence, we will be reducing our schedule down from an average over the last ten years of approximately 38 or 39 events to somewhere in the low 30s, 32 to 34 events. Probably in the 33- to 34-event range. We'll give the details of that sometime during next year. But the point here is we want to differentiate with the PGA TOUR and we want to be able to compete for some time on the same fan base. Our extensive research over this year has told us that the fan base for both tours is almost identical. The core golfer, the Senior Tour fan base is a little stronger on a percentage basis with people who play an awful lot of golf, but we are after the same fans and we need to share that fan base as we grow it. And to do so, going head-to-head when we have huge hours of television on the PGA TOUR is not in the Senior Tour's interests. Fourth thing, where we play and what we play on. We are looking at the mix of markets where we play and we will be making some adjustments in '03. In addition to that, we have a major effort underway to make sure that we are playing at the best known and best-quality golf courses available. Let me give you five examples of what we are talking about. We are working on a new event in Austin, Texas with Ben Crenshaw and Tom Kite which will be played, if we conclude that it will go on the schedule in '03, we have a number of good golf course alternatives in the Austin area available to us. Secondly, we are working with the Jack Nicklaus and Jack Nicklaus' organization to create a new event in Ohio, for lack of better terminology at this point is the Senior Ohio Open, which would rotate among some of the great golf courses of Ohio. Thirdly, we will be rotating the Legends of Golf Championship in it's reconstructed format around the southeast to quality golf courses, in addition to playing occasionally here at the King and the Bear, which we certainly put in that category. Fourthly, we will be playing or we are working on a newly-structured event in Kansas City, working with Tom Watson to be played hopefully at Kansas City National. We will be playing in '02 or at least we hope we will be playing in the final stages of discussions, to move the SBC Championship in San Antonio to Oak Hills, one of the great golf courses in Texas. And lastly we are delighted that the Kroger Classic in Cincinnati will be moving next year to the new TPC at Cincinnati, an Arnold Palmer design that's just opened, but has already received fantastic reviews by the players who played it this year at the tournament, by the media and by the people and golfers of the Cincinnati area. Fifthly, the kind of formats we use. PGA TOUR enjoys a broader mix of formats than the Senior Tour. I think there were 14 by my last count, special events on the PGA TOUR; the Senior Tour has about three or four. We think we need some different kind of formats in the mix on the Senior Tour and we will be looking to begin to do that in '03. Let me give you three examples, one of which starts next year; that is, the Legends, which changes its format to a combining of a team unofficial money event in one section played separately from an individual official money event as a centerpiece of the newly-constructed Legends. Secondly, we are delighted to announce a new partnership today with the National Hockey League in which we will be doing a joint event with the National Hockey League in a market to be determined or markets to be determined that relate to the interesting cross-polarization, if you will, of hockey and golf. It is not lost on us through the accomplishments of Mike Weir that 30 percent of the golfers in the upper Midwest and Canada play left-handed. There's a reason for that: They started playing hockey first. We overlap fan bases very nicely, and our conversations with Commissioner Bettman and his staff, we are both excited about the possibilities about doing an exciting new event utilizing some of the fine golfing hockey players from the NHL. We are also looking a Pebble Beach Pro-Am type format currently modelled somewhat after AT&T at a unique location. And we are looking at a variety of other things, but I mention those three by way of example. By way of conclusion, and then I'd like to show you something that I think gives you some indication of our vision, if you take any one of those steps individually, I guess you view them as important. But the combination of them in terms of shifting the direction of this tour, differentiating it from the PGA TOUR in terms of its experience and its communication, allows us the opportunity, we think, beginning certainly in '03 and again a lot of these things will start to come on-line next year, of exciting our fans by bringing them inside the ropes and teaching them something about how to improve their game, which also we think has the spin-off benefit of assisting our overall collaboration with other golf organizations in growing the game over the long term. And finally, we believe we will be providing significant additional value to our sponsor base, which is so important to the future of the Senior Tour. Let me share with you a short video which we think that, again, by way of example, not the applications that we will eventually use, but by way of example will give you some feel for the kind of things we are talking about when we envision the experience for fans and for sponsors.

(VIDEO PLAYED).

COMMISSIONER FINCHEM: Hopefully that gives you some sense as to why we are so excited about the new direction of this tour, as are our players, the tournament organization, and our partners, CNBC and PAX, are all equally excited. We have a lot of work to do for in the implementation phase in '03 to give it the impact that we want, but we are comfortable with the strategy. We think it is something that is going to work for our fans. It is going to be different. We are going to be in many ways a laboratory for change, a laboratory for doing television in different ways and we are excited about that, as are our staff and we are very pleased. Now we, have spent the last 30 minutes giving you a lot of information and I want to pause and take questions you have, and I want to reiterate to you that you have Allen Doyle, Bruce Fleisher, Dave Stockton and Fuzzy Zoeller over on the phone with us, as well. If you would like to direct your questions to them as well, feel free and we will collectively do the best we can and try to answer them.

COMMISSIONER FINCHEM: I think first of all, one of the spin-off advantages of having a shorter schedule, somewhat shorter schedule, for our sponsors and our fans is they are going to see a higher percentage of those events. Now, of course, they are going to have a higher percentage of the players they want to see. So, that goes without saying. Secondly, I think that all of the players are different in terms of their scheduling. You know, the bad news is that some players come over to the SENIOR TOUR and they don't play quite as much. On the other hand, we look at a player like Bruce Lietzke, and he is going to play more in the next five years than he averaged, by a fairly significant amount than he averaged on the PGA TOUR ever. Some players are fairly consistent. Now, Jack Nicklaus never played that many events on the PGA TOUR. Tom Watson the last ten years I don't think has ever played anything approaching 20. We would like for those players to play a few more, yes, but I do think that that has more to do with the personal inclinations of the player competitively than it does with the financial rewards on the PGA TOUR. We have had players on the Senior Tour for a long time that frankly, don't need to play for financial reasons and they are still playing 15 years later because this is the only place that you can receive that kind of quality of competition. I think we are going to be fine in that regard. But, we absolutely would like to see all of our players play a little more, yes.

COMMISSIONER FINCHEM: We are not certain yet. We know we are going to be doing a lot more interaction within the ropes with players. They will be miked in certain circumstances depending on the nature of the tournament. Those are the kind of things we are going to experiment in '02 and then get a feel for how aggressive we have we want to be in '03. It probably has to with the nature of leaderboard as we head into a Saturday and Sunday, the number of players in contention, various things like that. The other piece of it is that because of the instruction side of what we are doing, we are not -- even though we are going to fully convey to the fans what's happening with the competition, we are going to show all of the competition. But if you look at the telecast in any golf event, there is some time there that you can fill with some other kind of things. So since we are going to be conveying the kind of things and information that can help people get better at their game, we are going to be looking for opportunities to do that, not just at who -- not just at the players who are about to win the golf tournament or in a position to win the golf tournament. It is going to put more pressure on our television people and our communications people to capture some of that. That may feed into the miking question.

COMMISSIONER FINCHEM: All I can tell you is that at this point in time, every single player we have talked to over the last several weeks and leading into a conclusion on the strategy has been 100% supportive. A lot of responsibility for the execution of what we are talking about here will fall on the players. We didn't even get into some of the things that we did with the sponsors, but the players are being asked to make themselves available a lot more for things like chat room discussions, Q&A on instructional matters, shots that they have, how they practice, on-site studio visits, after-play clinics, as well as sponsor activities that relate to the drawing parties, Pro-Am parties, the award parties, the lunches. So we are going to spread the load among all of our players, but we have submitted to our players a list of 12 items that we will be coming to them with and asking them -- and each of those 12 items takes time. Now, it is up to us to effectively schedule it and implement it, so it is not too difficult for a player. But the reason I tell you all this is to conclude by saying that 100% of the players I've talked to say, "I'm in, I'm there and I'm going to help."

COMMISSIONER FINCHEM: No. I think the Senior Tour is -- the fundamentals of the Senior Tour are too strong. What's happened is that in the last five years, in particular, the SENIOR TOUR is increasingly compared to the PGA TOUR, and that's not a fair comparison. The basic structure of the Senior Tour is intact. Again, we have record prize money this year; we'll have record prize money again next year. It's intact. The question is: Can we grow the SENIOR TOUR and can we make it a meaningful experience for fans, so it continues to maintain a reasonable share of the fan base interest, and I think this direction will get us there. Now, with respect to your previous question about players helping, let me just -- Bob, if we could ask one of the players to comment on that, they might be able to give a little player perspective.

BRUCE FLEISHER: Allen, since you are the leading money winner, I'm going first, okay.

ALLEN DOYLE: Okay.

BRUCE FLEISHER: You know, folks, I'm sure the Commissioner, along with his staff, has looked at this very closely, have worked endless hours, as you can imagine. The way I feel -- and, of course, I've only been out there for three years, is that I don't think the world needs another tour, even though we've got incredible competition. I think Allen will agree with me; it's going to get tougher and tougher, as you can imagine. Fuzzy is coming off, Tom Purtzer is going to be joining us, along with Ben Crenshaw -- it goes on and on and on. We are not in trouble whatsoever. However, I do think we do need to kind of pull away and create more excitement, I think that's what this system will enable us to do. We are going to have to step it up as players, yes. But I think we are going to have to go to the sponsors and say, listen, this is what we have to offer, this, this and this. I love this video, Mr. Finchem. I think it's exciting. I'm looking forward to the future and I can't see us lose at all.

DAVE STOCKTON: I'm definitely the oldest, but sitting as a board member the last four years and looking at where the SENIOR TOUR is headed -- this is an organization that starting at Sawgrass at TPC headquarters, branching out to all the tournaments asking the players to do their share and more. Bruce, you mentioned that the new guys coming out, I heard Fuzzy there for a second and Tom and Ben coming out and Wayne Levi right behind him, and this new category we created is major, moving from 78 players to 84. But we are going to have recognizable names, at least two wins on the PGA TOUR to get qualified into that section, and it's going to make an impact. As far as is there anything wrong with the SENIOR TOUR, we don't feel there is. Obviously, we want to make adjustments with the television packet which the Commissioner has reiterated but there's a lot of things to be excited about and there's not a single thing that the policy board has not gotten behind, from the type of courses we played, the quality and how many people are going to be playing, cutting back, not going against the majors. All of these things together, your policy board was very comfortable in the direction this tour is going and we are very, very excited. Fuzzy, I know you're on the line and we are looking forward to seeing you out there this year.

FUZZY ZOELLER: Thank you very much. This gets back to the old bottom line once again, gentlemen. We must open our doors to the people who pay the bills, and I'm one that will do that and I know everybody else will on the PGA TOUR.

ALLEN DOYLE: Do you still need me?

DAVE STOCKTON: Allen, that was a phenomenal thing you did. You represented us quite well. You played phenomenally, and to do what you did by donating the $1 million -- we say we play for charity and a lot of people can't see that, but you stepped right up to the front.

ALLEN DOYLE: I appreciate that. I'll just throw in a couple of things. You know, when I look at my three years playing, we've got some special guys out on our tour, I feel, and I don't think that we are asked to do whatever we are asked to do. When you look at a guy like Bruce and a guy like Dave, and I can name name after name, if we are approached and the asked to do something that is going to help our tour, I think you are going to find us a lining up, willing to do everything that we are asked to do.

COMMISSIONER FINCHEM: It is a relationship between the SENIOR TOUR and the NHL. I was just mentioning Mike Weir because Mike's ascendancy on the PGA TOUR and his hockey background are increasingly brought to our attention perhaps a renewed focus on the fact that there is this overlap between the development and hockey and the interest in golf in perhaps this area of the country that has the most interest in golf, which is the upper Midwest and as well, of course we know about the intense interest in the game in Canada. I was just pointing out by way of example why we are excited about the NHL relationship. But this is a SENIOR TOUR/NHL relationship to create a new event together and probably do some other things together because we have already talked in a broad fashion, but they are developing their fan base and we are developing ours. There is such a high percentage of their players that play the game of golf, and many, many are quite good. I remember a number of years ago on the PGA TOUR there was a Monday Pro-Am the first year -- second year of the Vancouver tournament. They invited in some hockey players from around the League to play. There were 20,000 people at a Monday Pro-Am to watch these fellows play. So, it's very popular for the hockey fan to see the hockey player play, and we think it's a nice marriage to create interest in both sports in different markets that the NHL is in.

COMMISSIONER FINCHEM: Yes, sir. The focus for that event is '03. Our schedule for next year is pretty well set and most of what we are talking about now in terms of where we structure new events, new formats, a new markets as we shape a new schedule, most of that is for '03.

ALLEN DOYLE: I think it will be great. You know, I can speak directly about the New England area, and I don't know if one of those events would end up in that part of the country. But I would just echo what Tim had said; that the interest is huge in certain areas of this country for hockey, and to merge the two of them together, you know, is a great idea. I think it was in '96 at the Vancouver Open, I happened to play there on that Monday Pro-Am, and it was amazing. I mean, they came out, the people were all over the place, Bobby Orr played, a bunch of the great hockey names, and it's just a great connection to make.

COMMISSIONER FINCHEM: Well, here again, we have to test the concept in '02. We have to implement it in '03. And we are not going to stop the players and sit them down on the couch and do a round table discussion. But if we are going to have some -- as actually we have experimented with this year some ability to ask some questions of players during a round. It seemed to us not unreasonable that those questions should necessarily have to come from one of the announcers of the broadcast team. You know, the question could come from Jeff Rude in Dallas, which would create, we think, a different kind of interest on the part of the fan. Now, who knows, maybe we'll have a contest to see whose question gets picked that week. I don't know how we will do it. But it's just another of many -- again, let me just stress that again, as I gave examples in each medium, I am giving you for purposes of time two or three examples off of a list of 20 things in each area that probably will be employed in some fashion or another. The reason for the examples is to give you a sense of what we are trying to achieve, which is fans, regardless of how they interface with this tour, feel up close and personal with it and inside the ropes, and fans regardless of how they interface with this tour, walk away with some information on how to improve their games. Those are the two pillars of the vision and there are lots of different applications. Those are by way of example. There's no point now in saying exactly how some of these things are going to work, but they are going to be rolled out in '03 and tested in '02.

COMMISSIONER FINCHEM: I think it's a combination of things. Obviously, on the list of things we want our players to do, is to make them more available to features, especially as they relate to the two basic themes -- you know, getting articles in the print media that really give the fan an understanding about these players from a different perspective, and also, the player spending time describing what he thinks. But most of the Senior Tour players, I should have said this earlier, maybe I referenced it, but maybe it goes without saying. The Senior Tour players are all great players. The vast majority of them are also very good teachers. If you ever take one of them aside and get into a conversation about your game, you'll quickly find that out. They, inherently, most of these players have been playing golf all their lives. The atmosphere of the Senior Tour is one in which spending a little time and instructing the fans fits in that atmosphere, and we just want to take that and communicate it effectively, and doing that in print is something that will be focused on. Does that mean we are not going to advertise? Sure, we are going to advertise. We will also look for series in various publications that relate to that tie into that week-by-week theme. We'll have an instruction that will include players as well. Now whether that's a sponsor series or the magazine wants to do it, well that has to be worked out with the various publications.

COMMISSIONER FINCHEM: Obviously, we want to do two basic things here. The vision was created to -- and the structural changes to do two basic things. One is to excite the fan. The other is to create more value to the sponsor. What does value mean? Value means that the overall enterprise has more impact. Value means that we are reaching more people. But value also means that sponsors' customers who are on the property are also feel up close and personal, inside the ropes and they are learning something. One of our sponsors brings customers to the golf tournament, whether it is to the Pro-Am or in the hospitality suites. 90 percent of these people play the game. So the efforts to teach are also going to create more value for the sponsors and their guests. So it is not just a communication advertising, brand-building exercise. It is also very much a client entertainment and now educational exercise. So we are doing both. We are exciting the fans, connecting with the fan in ways we have not before, in a very direct way, and also creating more value for the sponsor.

COMMISSIONER FINCHEM: Well, we would like to think that any steps we take would make PGATOUR.cOM a more attractive asset. Obviously, if we have the capability to convey information about what is now we think after just a year or so going to be viewed as a major instructional platform -- I think that we have the potential here to have the most comprehensive instructional platform that there is in the game. If that is emanating through PGA TOUR or PGATOUR.COM, then PGATOUR.COM will have more value. But that is not the purpose of the exercise. That would be what we would work to as sort of a spin-off effect.

DAVE STOCKTON: At the board meeting when we were discussing, when you have players that turn 50 that you can't get to play a full schedule, it doesn't stand. And they feel that they can play -- cross-play on both tours; just because we go to younger players, it's going to make the problem bigger. I think doing two things, we retain our age at 50, and then we've reduced number of tournaments we are playing and allow the premiere players to play some of the majors on the regular tour. And like what Commissioner Finchem was talking about, there's no mood at the policy board level to consider going down under 50 at this time.

COMMISSIONER FINCHEM: I think as I said several weeks ago, the brunt of our research, and we did an awful lot of research with our fans, there did not seem to be much interest among our fan base of reducing the age. Our fans are comfortable with that part of the structure of the Senior Tour, and I think Dave is right. I think there are questions about, you know, what you get out of that. We just did not think that tinkering with that piece of the structure got us any real value. But as I said at the beginning, we didn't set anything aside. We examined what we thought was every facet of this tour, and it was an awful lot of work. My hat is off to the staff and the players who spend time working on it over the last eight or ten months. What we have described here are the highlights. There's a lot of underlying information that supports that and other aspects of it that will come forward as we get into '03.

DAVE STOCKTON: Well, from a player's point of view, No. 1, we've had some players come out that did not play as much as we thought we would. We have had some difficulty this year with our television. Commissioner Finchem talked about all of these things, and it's kind of come to a head. The demise of the Senior Tour is highly exaggerated, most of us believe. But I think this year, I have never seen this much emphasis placed on the Senior Tour by our staff at headquarters, by Tim and everybody underneath him and we are taking a hard look at how we can get this better. And I for one am very proud of this product he has put forward today. We all felt that as players we could do a much better job than we have done. You're right, I've been out here now ten years, and I've seen both sides of the coin, from where Bruce and Allen now sit at the top of the Money List to someone sitting outside the top 31. And to a man, all of us want to make the Tour better. Fuzzy is coming out and Fuzzy wants to make it better for whoever comes out behind him. It's just an ongoing thing. But I certainly thing we are headed in the right direction.

COMMISSIONER FINCHEM: Let me just comment, also, to suggest that we went through an evaluation of strategy as a defensive , it just not appropriate. I think if you look at the PGA TOUR and you go back four years, just when we came forward and said we don't like the structure on the PGA TOUR we want to add more World Golf Championships, we want to add the Presidents Cup, we want to create an environment where we are attracting the best players from all over the world on a systematic basis and organize the game on a global basis; that was somewhat controversial. But we wanted to grow stronger. We didn't want to sit on our laurels. I think that the comparison between the Senior Tour and the PGA TOUR has been somewhat overdone, but at the same time, the Senior Tour is going through the same transition today that the PGA TOUR went through 15 years ago. We wanted to sharpen the product to make it stronger and we think that we are doing that, but I do think that it should not be ignored that the underlying strength of this tour is what it is, and the numbers are that involved in this tour speak to that. But when you are doing well is a time to figure out what your weaknesses are and how you can get better, and I'm delighted that we made as much progress this year as we have.