	products recent interviews FastScripts archive about ASAP Sports

Our Clients:

Browse by Sport

Find us on

Subscribe to RSS

Click to go to
Asaptext.com

View our
e-Brochure

TOUR CHAMPIONSHIP

August 24, 2019

Mark Russell

Atlanta, Georgia

CHRIS REIMER: Thank you for joining us. With us today we have Tyler Dennis on stage left, and Mark Russell, stage right, from the PGA TOUR Rules and Competition. Mark, just some opening statements.

MARK RUSSELL: Well, coming into this afternoon today, we knew that there was a possibility of pop-up thunderstorms. We had a pop-up thunderstorm, and we suspended play immediately with that. And 30 minutes after we suspended play, there was dual lightning strikes, one in the maintenance area, one near the 16th tee and the driving range that struck a tree, and knocked debris off that tree and injured six people.

The emergency service people were right on the scene, got those people off there quickly. Very concerned about them. The staff of the tournament is at the hospital with those people right now. We understand they're not life-threatening injuries, and we decided that we weren't going to play any more golf today. We're going to start at 8:00 in the morning in position, and then we plan on playing off one tee tomorrow afternoon for the fourth round, just like we normally would.

Q. What is the policy and protocol for evacuating a golf course?
MARK RUSSELL: Well, we suspended play, and we put on the scoreboards that weather is approaching and we want the people to take shelter and leave, but a lot of times they don't.

TYLER DENNIS: I'd just add to that that there's several layers of safety out here, which is a very important thing to us. We have the plan each week to evacuate everybody inside the ropes, and the tournament also has a comprehensive plan to evacuate everyone outside of the ropes, meaning spectators and other constituents.

It's very important to us each week.

Q. What triggers that evacuation plan?
MARK RUSSELL: Well, when we suspend play, we encourage everybody to leave and take shelter anywhere they can. We opened up hospitality areas that are grounded, a lot of other places like that. You've got a lot of people, and you have to do that quickly, and sometimes people don't take shelter.

Q. There were storms in the forecast for this afternoon. Even yesterday evening there was a lot of storms in the forecast. People are already asking why you didn't play a lot earlier in the day to mitigate that possible problem.
MARK RUSSELL: Well, we had a situation where they were pop-up thunderstorms. We have a meteorologist on staff. We can monitor that. And a lot of times we get lucky and we don't get hit with thunderstorms, especially when it's a situation when they're pop-ups like that.

Now, that's what we were faced with. So, you know, we're going to see if we can deal with that. We can suspend play and get people out of here if that does happen, but a lot of times we're on the positive side hoping that we can play golf and get lucky and not be in the path of those thunderstorms.

Q. But instead of dealing with luck, would you not mitigate the problem if you played far earlier in the day when you had plenty of time to do so?
MARK RUSSELL: I think if we did that every time we had a possibility of thunderstorms in the Southeast, we'd do that basically every time we played golf.

TYLER DENNIS: I'll just add to that. We have a professional meteorologist that's on-site every week on all of our tours. And forecasting the weather, the safety that goes along with it, that is critical to us. Safety obviously, but just managing what we do out here. I think many of you that follow the TOUR around know that just about every day of the year when we're looking at the scheduled play for the next day or the format, we're taking into account all kinds of factors with that. You know, safety, as we're talking about right now, and other things related to the competition.

And so we have a lot of scenarios throughout the year where we look at it, and there's a very high degree of certainty that there will be storms coming. And there's a lot of other days when we look at it and we see, as it was today -- I believe it was a 50 to 60 percent chance of storms from 3:00 to 6:00 this afternoon -- and we just have to evaluate it and make our best decision when we make the schedule.

Obviously when it comes down to suspension of play, as Mark said, we don't leave any room for error there. Safety is a huge priority for us.

Q. Mark, when you looked at the forecast, was there any consideration yesterday to move up the tee times at all?
MARK RUSSELL: Well, no, not really, because we knew it was going to be a pop-up type situation that wasn't going to be a big line predicted that's going to come through in the afternoon. Basically, it's been kind of the same the other days, too. And we were fortunate, and there were thunderstorms around, but we didn't have to deal with them.

But today that happened, and we suspended play. Like Tyler said, we have a meteorologist on staff with very sophisticated equipment. And the safety of the spectators, the players, the volunteers, and our staff is of utmost importance.

Q. Tyler, you mentioned other considerations; is the television window part of that consideration, as well, when it comes to delays and things?
TYLER DENNIS: Yeah, not really, I mean, in the sense that the television window is when everything is perfect, that's obviously what we achieve. That kind of lays out the schedule of the week.

But as far as when the tee times are and the decisions that we're talking about, whether they be for safety or storms or heavy rain or something related to the golf course, we do what we feel is right in accordance with our procedures.

Q. Is a half-hour enough time to safely evacuate a golf course?
MARK RUSSELL: Well, I don't -- I mean, I wish I could say yes or no. I mean, we wanted to get the spectators, the players, the volunteers, everybody off here as soon as we possibly could, and the moment we saw we had danger, we suspended play. We had on the scoreboards that there was coming weather, and we got the players off, we got the volunteers off. And I don't -- I can't really answer that. I mean, we did everything we could do.

Q. Is there any kind of time frame you allow yourselves to say, okay, we need to move people off now?
MARK RUSSELL: Well, the moment we see it's a dangerous situation is when we suspend play, and we encourage people to leave or take shelter.

Q. Tyler, obviously disturbing scenes when you're a golf fan. You're out on the course enjoying a special day out. Obviously, you're still taking stock of the situation, but what do you think you might do now moving forward, and what lessons need to be learned from today?
TYLER DENNIS: Well, I would just say that right now, we're thinking about those that were injured. I understand that we have team members from our staff that are going to those facilities where people are, and our understanding as of the last report that I got from the emergency medical personnel, is that it appeared that there were no life-threatening injuries. I'll let them comment on that themselves as we go forward from here because I'm not directly in connection with them.

But we're going to focus on that for now.

Q. You just mentioned dangerous situation. You mentioned it a couple times. Specifically, is that lightning within X amount of miles of the golf course or a storm within X amount of miles? Is there a hard mark where you guys deem a dangerous situation?
MARK RUSSELL: Well, we evaluate every situation, which way the storm is moving and how strong it is. Like I said, our meteorologist has got some very sophisticated equipment, and he's advising us when we're looking at it the whole time, but he's got lightning detection and charge equipment in there, and the moment that goes up, we instantly suspend play.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297