BUICK CLASSIC

June 21, 2003

Slugger White

JOEL SCHUCHMANN: We'd like to welcome tournament director, Slugger White. Slugger if we could get some comments about basically the scenarios for tomorrow and possibly Monday and basically just the decision process behind everything.

SLUGGER WHITE: Well, as you know, Joel, it's nasty out there. This golf course has been wet. It was wet when we got here and it's gotten wetter it seems like every day. They are at what we call field capacity. We knew today -- we got lucky for two days. Looking back at Thursday and Friday, we were extremely lucky. When it started raining today we knew it would not take much to put us out of business and that's exactly what happened.

Q. What are your plans as far as today, tomorrow and maybe Monday?

SLUGGER WHITE: Our plan is tomorrow to resume the third round at 9:00 am and the fourth round; we will not repair. We will play the same group on the same tee and starting at 11:30 to 1:20, which is -- we are trying to get the 6:30 television finish. So that's the plan.

Q. Have you gone from one round to the next the same day when you've done this without repairing?

SLUGGER WHITE: Oh, yes, we have done that.

Q. This year?

SLUGGER WHITE: I don't think this year, no. We have about -- we are guesstimating about 3- to 3 1/2 hours to finish the third round, so to try to make our television time, that's what we are going to do.

Q. Like the old days?

SLUGGER WHITE: Right.

Q. You said that's the plan, with a smile. My guess is that you are not 100% optimistic that that's going to happen?

SLUGGER WHITE: I don't think 100%. I don't even know if 75 percent. This is supposed to continue into the night. We may get here tomorrow morning -- I mean, I'm like everyone; my crystal ball is a little fuzzy right now, but that's the best shot that we can get right now to try to get back to where we can finish.

We still have some time in the afternoon. We can probably play until 8:00 with cloud cover, I would think, that's pretty much pushing it. We have a little bit of flexibility as far as play time goes.

Q. If you were not able to play tomorrow, is the plan to play Monday?

SLUGGER WHITE: Yes, and we've got a good forecast for Monday.

Q. Before play was called, there was some lightning; did it come quicker than you guys thought?

SLUGGER WHITE: It never showed up. It hit us -- it never showed up on what's Thor guard. It came out of the blue, completely out of the blue and those things happen sometimes. It's unfortunate and it's a little embarrassing to be quite honest. We don't want anyone out there unsafe in a situation out there. It was completely out of the blue. That's all we could do. In fact, I did apologize to the players for that reason.

Q. Is there a chance that there might have to be some work to be done on this course before you can start play on it?

SLUGGER WHITE: There's a lot of work to be done. In fact, when I walked out of here, Joe Alonzie and I are going to sit down and assess what needs to be done. It's a great deal of work out there.

Q. How are the bunkers?

SLUGGER WHITE: The bunkers -- the greens, if the rain subsides, the greens go -- they get rid of the water pretty fast. We have about five fairways that are extremely bad: 2, the front of 5, 8, 11, 15. So there's 18 right now -- I'm sure you've probably seen 18 but there's a lot of work to be done.

And those guys, I can't give enough credit, Joe Alonzie and his crew, they have done a great job out there so far with we've got.

JOEL SCHUCHMANN: I know you're busy so we won't keep you any longer. We appreciate your help.

Q. What if it rains through tomorrow and the course is unplayable Monday?

SLUGGER WHITE: Well, the only thing we can do with that is we can go to Tuesday but we can't go any further than Tuesday, though. Like I said we've got a good forecast Monday and Tuesday. Let's hope we don't get that far, or go that far.

End of FastScripts....