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MCI HERITAGE

April 18, 2004

Slugger White

HILTON HEAD, SOUTH CAROLINA

JOAN vT ALEXANDER: We'd like to thank Slugger for joining us here in the media center for questions about a ruling with Stewart Cink tonight. Why don't we just begin with questions rather than you going and explaining.

Q. Slugger, how was this brought to your attention, did you question it when it happened?

SLUGGER WHITE: No. I was behind the 16 green, and Peter Costas said something to me about removing sand. And I said, well, we don't consider that sand, it's a limestone base in there, so we don't consider that sand, it's a waste area. And, in fact, with we had an imbedded ball, we would remove from an imbedded ball. But it didn't come to the forefront until -- shoot, until I walked into the trailer after we finished.

Q. Did you get a lot of calls?

SLUGGER WHITE: We got a couple of calls in the trailer. I got no call on my phone. And that was pretty much it.

Q. Did Stewart get a ruling on it?

SLUGGER WHITE: As we're walking up -- I will go back. As we were walking up he asked me what he could do in the waste area. I said you could remove loose impediment. I said yes, you could ground your club. Yes, you could take practice strokes. You just can't obviously dig down. But you can remove loose impediments by any means. And everything pretty much in there was pretty loose. But like I say, he was in these raked areas, and in removing these, it may have accentuated this raked area. I've seen it probably 10 or 12 times, roll it up, roll it back, roll it up, roll it back. And that's just the determination we came up with.

Q. What were the issues that people thought they were citing?

SLUGGER WHITE: I didn't talk to anybody in there. I think we got some questions about whether he'd improved his lie. One guy thinks that he took his finger and went this way (indicating), which he was clearly not doing. Yes, he flicked them away. But like I said, there are so many little pebbles in there. That's the way -- that's the nature of a waste area.

Q. For people who don't know the rules very well, is that something that -- had he done that, is that something --

SLUGGER WHITE: Now, he has created something there, now he has a problem. If he had taken his finger and raked across that, yes, he's improved his line of play.

Q. Would that be similar to the earlier ruling where you had somebody sweeping dew out behind the ball, if he had brushed it like that?

SLUGGER WHITE: That would be. But where did that happen?

Q. I thought there was a ruling about sweeping dew behind the ball.

SLUGGER WHITE: I know we had that at a U.S. Open.

Q. Could you give a sense what the meeting felt like. It looked like everybody was a little down.

SLUGGER WHITE: Stewart was a little -- he was driving back from 18 and I was going to the truck, and I said can I have a moment with you. He got out and we talked and he said I did exactly what you told me I could do. And I said well, I'm going to the truck. He said can I go with you? And I said sure you can. We looked at it 10 or 12 times, rolled it up, rolled it back, rolled it up, rolled it back. And the determination was that he was within his rights to remove his loose impediments.

Q. Has this happened before, where viewers have brought things to your attention? You don't see that in the NBA or the NFL. Is that good or bad for golf in general?

SLUGGER WHITE: It's such a gentleman's game. And it's just -- we play by the rules. We don't -- we're not pulling guard, saying hold on, I held that outside linebacker, we don't do that. These guys call rules infractions on themselves all the time. I just -- sometimes -- we got a lot of calls. And I would say 99 percent of the calls are witch-hunts. But we do look at them. And we go to the tape.

Q. In your opinion this was not a close call on your part?

SLUGGER WHITE: I could see where someone might think it might be something. With the rake marks in the waste area there I think what he removed may have accentuated what they thought they saw, okay? But, again, he was removing loose impediments.

Q. So a loose impediment could be a rock, what Tiger moved one day?

SLUGGER WHITE: Exactly, be as big as that. You know, you played out here for years. You've seen that.

Q. But it's hard for a lot of people to understand that that little pebble or little --

SLUGGER WHITE: It is a loose impediment. It would be like if a guy had five or six acorns around his ball. It looks like the ball is buried, and removes the acorn, now it looks like it's sitting up on a tuft of grass, but he's entitled to do that.

Q. In your knowledge, has there ever been an instance of a result being overturned on a PGA TOUR?

SLUGGER WHITE: I can't remember. I'm sure there has been, but I couldn't put a finger on it, I really don't know.

Q. (Inaudible).

SLUGGER WHITE: Yes.

Q. Would they have continued play, would that -- if he holed out and had a stroke penalty?

SLUGGER WHITE: It would have been a two stroke penalty.

Q. Were you ever close to ruling the other way? And how long did it take you to make your decision?

SLUGGER WHITE: No, I don't think so, not looking at what we were looking at. I think it was -- again, I think it was clearly within his rights.

Q. When you talked to him before he went through the process, did you suggest to him to pick things up and make sure he didn't sweep anything away?

SLUGGER WHITE: I told him -- a couple of our guys, a couple of our staff watched him and said he was very careful in what he was doing. When I went back -- he did flick a couple -- he flicked a couple, and he picked a couple up and then he flicked a couple more. It's all -- again, I'm repeating myself. He was removing loose impediments.

JOAN vT ALEXANDER: Thank you for joining us. We appreciate your time.

End of FastScripts.

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