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THE PLAYERS CHAMPIONSHIP

May 10, 2016

Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida

AMANDA HERRINGTON: Good afternoon, everyone. I'm Amanda Herrington with the PGA TOUR communications department. I would like to welcome you to our special Olympics press conference here. We're very grateful we have a wonderful panel up here. You just heard from our commissioner, PGA TOUR Commissioner Tim Finchem, also heard from LPGA commissioner Mike Whan.

Thank you for joining us this afternoon here at THE PLAYERS Championship 2016 as golf runs to the Olympics for the first time since 1904. We're pleased to have with us here today two members of the IGF Board of Directors and two players for the special Olympics press conference. We're only 87 days out from our opening ceremonies in Rio.

With that, I will turn it over to our panel to hear some opening comments and then go to you for questions. First we would like to hear from PGA TOUR commissioner, Tim Finchem.

TIM FINCHEM: Thank you, and I would like to welcome Caroline and Graham to join us. We appreciate -- particularly Graham's got a tournament this week, so we appreciate you being here. Also like to recognize Antony Scanlon, Executive Director of the International Golf Federation that oversees our involvement in the games for being here.

I think what we wanted to do today is take the opportunity to share with you where we think we are with the Olympics and have an opportunity for you to ask your questions.

Mike and I we're just involved in a press conference here a few minutes ago talking about trying to grow the game here, particularly in the United States, and perhaps to some extent outside the United States working with Topgolf. This is also -- when we talk about the Olympics, in our view, we're talking about growing the game because, as most of you know, we went for a long time showing disinterest in going into the Olympics, but it was after we did an international study that told us that 85 countries who invest government money in sports only invest if that sport is on the Olympic program, turned us around and we agreed to go into the Olympics primarily focused on growing the game and recognizing that overnight there would be coffers from governments opened up to provide financial support to grow the game.

When you look at reach of the Olympics, the Olympics in London reached 3.6 billion people globally. A billion people watched the opening ceremonies alone. It's a platform that is unique in sport and one that we wanted to take advantage of from the standpoint of growing the game. I think that we continue to have that excitement, and I would further report to you that as many of you know, the golf course that has been designed by Gil Hanse in Rio has turned out to be terrific. He's done an excellent job. All the golf organizations that are involved in the IGF have taken a look at it and been down there. The test event that was conducted went very well, and it prompted the mayor of Rio and also the head of the Olympic Organizing Committee in Rio both to comment that our test event, the test event for men's and women's golf, has led to the best PR that they have had about the game since the vote was taken in Europe to stage the games in Rio seven years in advance in 2009.

So, from that perspective, we're off to a good start. Now, as you're also aware, there are a variety of issues with the games, health issues, the traditional -- almost traditional thing with the Olympics with regard to congestion, facilities not being finished, and we have seen that in Greece and we saw it in Atlanta and we saw it in China and we are confident that those issues can be handled when we're down there.

But with that said, I think we're on a good track. The pool has been identified. Drug testing has commenced among members of that pool. And it's already demonstrated itself to be a robust testing program as we knew it would be. And we're moving down the road.

So with that I'll turn it over for his perspective to Mike Whan from the LPGA.

MIKE WHAN: Thanks Tim. Yeah, when I started traveling the world in 2010 in this job, I learned a new phrase, podium sport. I would introduce myself as the LPGA commissioner, and they would say oh, a new podium sport, and I realized what podium sport means around the world is a sport that actually puts your country on a podium. And to Tim's point, we have seen the investment the interest follow golf in the Olympics.

I'll let Caroline talk to the excitement that's going on at the LPGA and the fact that drug testing has begun because I know she's experienced that, but it really is, it's a neat buzz in player dining. I've never seen so many players look at the Rolex Rankings in their life or ask me how they worked again. Everybody wants to know how the rankings work one more time. But it's an exciting time for us, I've said this many times, which is getting to know some other Olympics sports.

I'm surprised at how many of them feel like we have a network set up to truly capitalize. What I mean by that is a lot of sports get an every-four-year megadose of fan and media interest, right. You get to see them once, but if you like diving or kayaking or ping-pong or some of these, you're kind of done, and you get to watch it again four years from now. What they find interesting about golf is we're going to go down there and play for the week, and then the next week Tim's going to be on TV in 175 countries and Mike's going to be on TV in 175 countries, so if we grab another large dose of casual fans that get interested in the game, we're not going to give them a four-year hiatus to follow it some more. Because of the global reach that our telecast has and even our playing has, we have an opportunity to capitalize where a lot of other sports don't really have that built-up already-existing worldwide TV network.

There's no doubt, and again, Caroline can talk more to this. There's no doubt that Zika is something that's captured our attention. I don't think anybody who's between the ages of 18 and 35 on our TOUR that doesn't now know how to spell it and how to say it. But we got a little help through the test event. One of the things that came back from the test event is the local folks were saying to us, remember, you're playing in the winter, and they kept saying you're from Florida, right? Right. Well, in Florida how many bugs do you see in the winter? I said, we don't really have bugs in the winter. Neither do we. And when you kind of play right on the water, and their point is think about in Florida on the beach versus inland that the bug content doesn't exist the on the beach versus farther inland. Two things that are powerful but I don't think anybody's kidding ourselves in making sure we take certain precautions and it's good to see the whole world with whether it's World Health Organization or the rest all attacking these problems, but I don't know about you, Caroline, but I'll let you talk to it, but I have yet to meet somebody in player dining who wasn't trying to figure out if they were going to make it on their country team.

CAROLINE MASSON: Yeah, it's huge for us. I think everybody is really buzzing about the Olympics. It's a big deal for everyone. It's a very big deal for the Asians. That's what I've found out. The Koreans, you know, they don't really care much about other tournaments anymore, it's really about the Olympics, and obviously for me personally too, being from Germany, golf is a big deal. We still have some work to do, so obviously being an Olympic athlete, it's just way different, and being able to represent my country on the biggest stage in sport is just absolutely huge, and it will be great on so many levels. I think as an athlete it's a wonderful opportunity to compete against the best players in the world. You stay in the Olympic Village. You meet other athletes from completely different sports that as a golfer you never have an opportunity to meet them and get in touch with them and talk about their sports. We can watch them, we can watch them compete and obviously compete in golf, as well, and it's just such a huge opportunity. I think that all the girls are really, really looking forward to, everybody looks at the rankings, wants to get into one of those two or four spots, and yeah, we're just very excited that we're going to be in Rio soon.

AMANDA HERRINGTON: Great, thank you, and with that we'll turn it over to Graham.

GRAHAM DELAET: Yeah, I mean, I would second everything that Caroline just said. Being Canadian, this is what we were playing for right here, and it's amazing like we're out here, we're playing for money, we're playing for our job, we're playing for FedExCup points, but we go down there and you're playing for pride, and there's something really special about that. I think I've been lucky enough to represent Canada a few times in different international events, World Cups and Presidents Cups, and there's something just really, really special about just putting your flag on your back and going to play for 35 million people, and it's something that I hope I have the opportunity to do. It's definitely not a lock right now, and Canada is the defending champions. It's 114 years or whatever it's been, or 112 years, but...

MIKE WHAN: You have to bring the belt back to Rio.

GRAHAM DELAET: Rumor has it that when George Line when he won walked on his hands to the podium. I don't know if that's true or not. I promise I won't do that. But yeah, it's an unbelievable opportunity. It's something that from the time it was announced it was really important to me to try to be on this team, and I hope to be able to do it. I think that like we were saying about growing the game, if we can get 10 extra kids involved in sport because a Canadian wins a medal or whatever it may be, no matter who, if a German wins a gold medal and all of a sudden you got an influx of German girls playing golf, I just think it's great for our game.

MIKE WHAN: Except for the influx of German girls. (Laughter.)

AMANDA HERRINGTON: Thank you for your opening comments. We'll take questions.

Q. So, you guys mentioned Zika. There is an article that somebody wrote on the Harvard Public Health Review saying Zika virus means Brazil Olympics must not proceed. You mentioned precautions that you can take. What precautions can you take?
MIKE WHAN: Well, it's funny, when we did a test event, we told all the local players to wear long sleeves, long pants, do all the precautions in terms of collar up. We're going to provide all kinds of bug spray. As Antony can attest, all the players showed up in sleeveless shirts and skirts. Locals are saying, hey I understand what you guys are reading, but -- and that's where they play, in heather. Of course my chief tour official was completely covered head to toe. And then told me on day two she completely changed to -- just didn't see a bug.

But it doesn't mean any of us are taking it lightly, and every medical report that Anthony gets either from the World Health Organization or the IOC or from our own TOUR medical officials we're passing right on to the players. We want the players to be able to make up their own decisions and be able to read the medical pieces, but essentially what they're telling me is no different than Orlando in the summertime. If you don't want to get bit by mosquitoes, cover-up, a lot of protection, but again, we're going to be playing, think of Orlando in January, not Orlando in August. It's winter months, and most of the locals in Rio have told us the same thing, which is there's a difference in Rio in summer and winter, just like there is in Florida, and that's helpful for us and on top of the being waterside.

Q. Commissioner Finchem, have you spoken to any of the players who have announced that they aren't going to participate who are probably eligible, and if you did or have read their comments, do you understand where they're coming from with regard to comments they have made about scheduling, format, or disease?
TIM FINCHEM: Yeah, I think so. I've talked to a couple of them myself. Our team has talked to all of them. I think that it's a combination of things, really. Starts with a compacted season, affects the players different ways, the way that the changes were for the season this year.

Part of it is prioritization, I would admit, although I think in general there's a real enthusiasm, certainly for the concept of golf in the Olympics.

I think Zika has, for a family that's just had a baby, maybe thinking scheduling, trying to -- in today's world you sort of think, you know, okay, what's the time lapse between my first baby and my second baby. You already had maybe some concerns and you're concerned about that. The easy thing to do would be to say, well, let's just pass this year. We'll go and we'll go to Tokyo. So I think it's some combination of things, really.

I think we have seen it in the other sports. One of the things that gave us pause for a long time with the Olympics was that when we looked at tennis, kind of a similar thing with individual sports, that we felt that the prevalence of big championships like we have in golf in tennis was, would preclude tennis being elevated with golf with tennis in the Olympics, so it's been kind of inconsistent. Basketball started off real strong, with the Dream Team in '92 and then it fell off for two or three Olympics. Now it's come back very strong.

So I don't know exactly one thing. We're kind of used to, in golf, and in most of the individual sports, to you just got to accept the fact that not everybody's going to play every week. Not everybody's even going to play in top events. Most of the top events have lost players for strange reasons at one time or another. These aren't strange reasons, really. These are more like concerns. And once you get the amount of media that's been built up around Zika, and then you come with the facts, sometimes people have already made up their minds. So there may be a little bit of that.

I don't want to paint the players as making up, making these decisions based on any one thing. I think they're being legitimate when they have said what they have said. But I think that, I do think we have had a, you know, a combination of things that have created some issues this year. But we seem to be doing okay and I think we're going to have a superb Olympics once we get down there.

AMANDA HERRINGTON: We actually have to excuse Graham, who has an engagement at 3:00, but we would like to thank you for joining us today.

MIKE WHAN: Thanks, Graham.

Q. For anyone, I think it was Jason Day in a recent press conference said he was getting a shot for Zika, an immunization, this week at THE PLAYERS that would have something to do with prevention against the Zika virus, and I didn't know if everybody's getting immunized, if there's an immunization that people can get.
TIM FINCHEM: I'm not aware of any. Did one pop up in the last couple days?

MIKE WHAN: Not to self, call Jason.

TIM FINCHEM: I read an article that there's a lot of work being done on developing an antidote, but I don't think that work is complete yet. So I'm not aware of what Jason's doing.

Q. When you look back at the history of the advancements, the markers in modern golf, Arnold Palmer, television, technology, the World Golf Championship events, Tiger Woods.
MIKE WHAN: LPGA.

Q. And the recent relationship and new partnership that you have with the LPGA, these are markers of the advancement. Where do you think the Olympics will rank as far as the advancement?
TIM FINCHEM: I think you have to wait and see what the impact is on growing the game. I mean if you look at just Asia, for example, just Asia, and the difficulties that golf has in the public sector in many Asian countries, the same countries that have a very high priority on sports in the Olympics, our assumption has been that their overriding emphasis on the Olympic Games will help modify the barriers that are in some of those countries to really allowing the game to grow.

Now, if that comes to pass, then I put it pretty high. But we won't know that for a few years. Now, because again, I think our, our measure -- if you asked me, let's get together next week and put together another big tournament, I don't think that's what golf needs right now, necessarily. But the Olympics is unique. You're talking about three billion people watching the sport on television; that's one thing. When you think about the way it affects the culture of sport in certain countries, and opens that country up to look at golf as a mainstream sport, athletic sport, then that can really be a game changer.

So we're not going to know the answer to that question, but would I say that if it meets, if it's 50 percent of the way of what it could have, could be, in terms of impact, if it's worth doing, and then to your point, it could be ranked relatively high in terms of, you know, a significant change in terms of global. I don't think it would rank even then perhaps really high in terms of the golf, what we call golf mature areas, U.K., U.S., but the rest of the world could rank quite high.

MIKE WHAN: I've said this many times, which is it doesn't matter what the viewership is of the women's Olympics in Rio, it's already changed the world. And I don't know the men's game that well, but in many countries we visit golf's a different sport today. In fact, it's a sport, where a lot of women weren't even sure they were calling it a sport five or six years ago, and if you are a young female with talent and interest, there's places to go, there's coaches to get, there's programs to be a part of, there's national teams being built and are built, that as Tim mentioned before, there's government support, so whether we get huge ratings of the women's Olympics, women's golf in Olympics, whether we get no ratings, whether we get blacked out, it's already changed the kind of the glide path of women's golf worldwide in terms of access, availability, teaching. It's pretty significant and we saw it to start to happen in 2009 or 2010, 2011.

TIM FINCHEM: Very good question, by the way.

Q. How many players, if any, have expressed reservations about going because of Zika, and second, for Caroline if you had any examples of this robust drug testing program.
MIKE WHAN: I would say five or six players have asked me questions about Zika. I've yet to have a player say to me they're not planning to go because of Zika. They're not having to make that decision, but we were just talking about it before in the hallway. I said to Caroline, do you know any player who's not going? Because I don't know any player who's even said I'm on the fence. They want to learn about it and are excited about it, but again, that could change. I've got plenty of players at the age where this would be concerning, but I haven't heard any player say they're interested in stepping out, have you?

CAROLINE MASSON: No, no, nothing like that. Obviously players talk about Zika, do you have any information, what do you think, and it's very hard for us to say. I mean we just trust in what the Tour gives us, what the WHO gives us, information, and take all the precautions we can, but I think that most of all, everybody's really excited and we feel safe, and I think as far as I'm concerned, everybody wants to be part of it.

MIKE WHAN: That doesn't mean that couldn't change as we go farther along, but I think everybody right now is hoping that there will be more learning in the meantime and planning to, if they can get in, wear the flag. You want to talk about the drug testing?

CAROLINE MASSON: Love to. Yeah, I mean obviously it's new to us, it's new to golf that we're in those test pools. I actually I think it was in 2009 I played a World Amateur Championship and they put me in the same test pool then as an amateur. So I was kind of familiar with the whole program and how it works. So for me maybe it was a little bit easier, but as a golfer, I think it's very, very new, and we -- I think we have to accept that this is a huge part of the Olympics. We get tested at LPGA tournaments. I'm sure the guys get tested, too. It's a little bit of a different level. They have a little different rules. Some things you cannot take that we could probably take on the LPGA, so we have to be careful with the medication and especially I think allergy medication, but we just are to pay attention to it and we have to take it very seriously because I know the system and you have to update it all the time. It's definitely a little -- not a problem with the privacy, but you definitely have to pay attention to it. For every day we have to provide an overnight accommodation. We have to provide a time slot of one hour a day where we're definitely at that location that we put in the system so they can come and test us.

And I think I don't think that doping is a very big issue in golf, but I do think that we have to accept that we're a part of it now and we have to take it seriously, and I hope that all the players do that, because we obviously we don't want any bad media because somebody doesn't really take it seriously and doesn't know how to work the system. So, for us players, it's a pretty big deal. We were talking about it. I've been doing it since January. Some players just started a few days ago.

So a lot of players came up to me and said, hey, how does this work, what do we have to put in the system, what information do we have to provide, so I think we got pretty good help from the LPGA and the IGF as well, to know what we have to do, and you know, yeah, it's another thing that we have to pay attention to, and I hope everybody does.

I had my first experience two weeks ago in Dallas, so the German NADA, they sent somebody to test me at 6:15 in the morning and you just have to make sure they have the right information. They come to the hotel you are staying at and they knock on your door and don't leave until they have what they want. (Laughter.)

So yeah, it's interesting, but it's part of it, and it's only a good thing that golf is such a big part of it, too.

MIKE WHAN: By the way, if you're in the media pool for the Olympics, you'll also be part of the drug testing program, so...

Q. One of the reasons why no one has said that they don't want to go is because the qualifications period hasn't begun or ended. They don't have to make up their mind.
MIKE WHAN: Right. No one knows if they're finally in the pool or not, but I would tell you that as we both know, there's more than a few players. There's quite a few players that look to be Olympic athletes if they want to join their team. If you can look at the World Rankings and know if you're the first or second ranked German and the third ranked German isn't close, you know you can get your head around the fact that Rio's in your future. And I mean, at the end of the day you guys know it because you cover the sport enough. You sit down in player dining and you know what's going on on Tour, right, so that's what I was saying to her. I mean, I spend most of my day in player dining to find out what's going on with the Tour, and Olympics excitement is an understatement. There's just a lot of excitement.

Most of these players grew up with big dreams. They're standing on the putting green, this is a putt for the U.S. Women's Open, or this is putt to win the Ricoh Women's British Open, but nobody stood on that putting green and said, this is for the gold medal. It wasn't a part of the vernacular of the dreamscape, so for most of these players, all of a sudden this whole new goal came about where you're not playing a great golf event, you're playing in the greatest sports arena in the world, and now there's a new dream for a lot of them, and they also realize that if the next one's 2020, especially on the LPGA, where youth just keeps coming, no one is convinced that they'll be at the top of that chart in 2020, so they realize that it's an opportunity, it might be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and it wasn't even a dream you had when you were young because you just didn't know it was it was legit.

Q. This is for Tim and Mike. Is there anything you are focused on now or can be focused ongoing into these Olympics to make sure that golf stays in beyond 2020? Is there any big priority that you think needs to occur that you, that you can kind of zero in on yourselves?
TIM FINCHEM: No, not that we're not already doing, I mean, as you would suspect, the Olympics looks at the performance, looks at the -- it'll look at the television numbers, look at the galleries that you generate and do all those things. But the vote is in 2017 for -- is that right?

MIKE WHAN: For after.

TIM FINCHEM: The vote's in 2017 for after '20, for after 2020.

MIKE WHAN: Right for the beginning of 2024.

TIM FINCHEM: So we're in 2020 in Tokyo, and you know, when the IOC made the decision between Chicago and Rio, made the decision to go to Rio, obviously some of those characteristics were up against us, because Chicago was how many people do you want? And you had, and now it's about four days in advance and you don't have them, and Rio is not a golf country. So a different kind of challenge.

But I think that looking at it right now, I think we'll be fine on television, I think we'll have decent galleries, and of course you're aware of all of the budget cuts down there and the other difficulties that could impact a little bit of that, but if -- we're absolutely convinced in 2020 we're going to have a home run, and we're hopeful that the U.S., from our perspective, obviously we would love to see Los Angeles get the games in 2024.

But you know, if you look at the broader things that the IOC looks at from a sport, then they looked at from our perspective, looking at golf, the reason they like golf is it's growing around the globe, it's bringing young people to the game, it's one of the few sports that's actively very popular on every continent, just to different levels, but reasonably popular on every continent. Not that many of them. So it's truly a global sport, and it's a sport that works quite well with sponsorship and they're in that business, so I don't think any of those variables are going to change after this year. I think we'll be in good shape.

MIKE WHAN: Knowing the global fan interest is their No. 1 driver. We feel pretty good. Even this week proves to you what global fan interest can create.

Q. Caroline, I don't want to get too far ahead, but your Tour is scheduled in a way that clears the schedule for the games, and I'm wondering if you have thought ahead about the opening ceremonies, the closing ceremonies, and if other players have talked about it. Is that something that you will, should you make it, want to participate in, even though there's a week gap between the ceremony and the start of the competition?
CAROLINE MASSON: Yeah, I think it's actually even more than a week. I was looking at it. I mean, when I first thought about it, I was saying, of course, I have to be at the opening ceremony and it really means a lot to me, but then looking at the schedule, it will mean that I would be in Rio for two and a half weeks in the middle of the summer and our schedule is still pretty packed, so I just made the decision that I just can't do that for two and a half weeks. I'm going to go up a little early. I just found out from the German Golf Federation that actually the women are only able to play one practice round, yeah, because we start on Wednesday, we finish up on Saturday, the closing ceremony will be Sunday, and the course will be closed on that Monday after the guys finish up.

So for us, it makes sense going a little bit early, and in my opinion, even though we can't play that much on the golf course, we can go out, watch the guys, look at the course, and get an idea of what we're getting into, and yeah, I'm going to be there for so for about 10 days, we'll definitely do the closing ceremony.

We're going to play the Canadian Open after that, so for us it means maybe Sunday night, Monday morning going straight to Canada. It's hard because, like Mike said, it's a once-in-a-lifetime, maybe a once-in-a-lifetime experience, and you definitely want to soak it in. Obviously the opening ceremony is a huge deal, but we still have to consider the whole year and the schedule, so I unfortunately can't have it all, but I'm going to try to, yeah, soak it in as much as I can, watch other sports and that's why I'm going up a little early to get a good idea of what's going on in the Olympics Village.

MIKE WHAN: That's pretty standard, too, Jeff. I think when we first announced the Olympics, almost everybody said, I'm going to the opening ceremonies, and 24 events and then kind of looked at it and said, hey, if I'm going to be down there and I'm about to play the biggest event I've ever played in, and now that we finish essentially the Saturday before opening ceremonies, we were going to finish on a Sunday, but with the IOC all events have to be finished by noon on that final Sunday, so we didn't want to try to jam that in. It really wasn't feasible. So now it made it where you can come down, play, go to the closing ceremonies, and still make it to Canada for our next event. No pressure.

Q. First, to Caroline and then to Commissioner Finchem. If Caroline goes down there, which would be better for the sport? If it said that Caroline won the Olympic gold medal or Germany won the Olympic gold medal, and then if Rickie Fowler goes down there, is the United States winning the Olympic gold or is it Rickie Fowler winning the Olympic gold?
CAROLINE MASSON: I think it's both. I think it's a huge deal for the athlete himself or herself, and for the country as well. I mean, I know we don't have a team event, which is unfortunate, but we're still playing for our countries and, yeah, I think that it would make a huge impact on the countries that that player is coming from.

Q. The point of my question is, which would be better for the sport, if the victory is known as a country winning it or the individual winning it?
MIKE WHAN: I think it's hard to separate the two. I think Michael Phelps winning a race, most fans high-five America won a gold, and same thing, it's a huge impact on Michael Phelps' life, and we kind of talked to them, not really sure the fan separates the two, certainly not the fan of the country who wins, because as Americans we take credit for an American win. If an American wins the gold, we don't really think about all the time just the individual, you know, it's, it's, it's a two for one.

Q. Commissioner?
TIM FINCHEM: Yeah, I mean, I think the same thing. I think if you look at the individual sports, track, some track, tennis, swimming, the same thing. I think when we went into the Olympics, we were told that the maximum athletes we could have is 60 men and 60 women. Our objective was to get as many countries represented, really. I remember when Juan Samaranch asked me in 1999, he said, you know, I have a great solution for you; we don't want too many athletes, and so we'll have -- we think we'll have the 12 biggest golf countries represented with two people each, we'll hold it to 24 athletes, we can probably work with that. And he said, but you know, this would be great for growing the game.

And I said well, you want to grow the game in 12 countries that are already golf mature, that doesn't make a lot -- we're trying to grow the game globally. So when we're dealing with 60 athletes, we want to get as many countries represented. And at the same time the IOC and we want all the top or most of the very top players at that time in it. So this is kind of a result of that. It made sense to go this direction. But I think between the two, I would argue that there's not much difference.

I mean, look at what happens when -- you know, if Rory McIlroy wins a tournament over here, it's a pretty big deal in Ireland. It's a pretty big deal in Boston, too, and with Irish people. But you know, if he wins a team match it's a big deal also. So I don't, I don't see a lot of difference between the two.

Q. Commissioner, how damaging would it be for golf to remain in the Olympics if more players cite scheduling issues as a reason not to compete?
TIM FINCHEM: Well, you know, I think that we're well-positioned to stay in for all the reasons I gave earlier. But it's a speculative question. I generally in these, in this pressroom for a lot of years don't answer questions like that. Probably the smartest thing to do, but if that were to develop, we'll cross that bridge. But I think right now we're looking pretty good.

Q. If I could just follow-up then, do you feel a responsibility to remind the players of the potential impact?
TIM FINCHEM: Well, I think that the players, what we like to do is speak in positive terms. And I think the positives here are this is the biggest sports stage ever. Every four years it happens, and you want to take advantage of that. And I will admit, staying in the games is probably the most important, but having all the top players is pretty important, too.

We don't go around saying gloom and doom. We say, look, let's take advantage of the upside here if we possibly can. At the same time, we respect a player's decision. They have their reasons, these are on our TOUR smart guys, on Mike's Tour smart women. They understand the realities, and they have decisions to make. So, we -- if you go back during my tenure, there are lots of times where I'm dissatisfied with a player's decision, but it doesn't seem to be -- a decision that I don't care for doesn't really seem to have held us back in any respect. It's a short-term thing, and we'll move on regardless of what the result is.

AMANDA HERRINGTON: With that, we will conclude. Thank you all for joining us today.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297

THE PLAYERS CHAMPIONSHIP

May 10, 2016

Tim Finchem

Mike Whan

Caroline Masson

Graham DeLaet