THE PLAYERS CHAMPIONSHIP

March 10, 2023

Gary Young

TPC Sawgrass

Quick Quotes

THE MODERATOR: We would like to welcome Gary Young, chief referee of THE PLAYERS Championship, to the media center. A lot of eager questions from the media here. So we'll just roll it open with an opening statement from you, Gary.

GARY YOUNG: Okay. As everyone knows, we have completed play for the day here. We will resume round 2 at 7:00 a.m. tomorrow morning. We have 11 holes left to play for the final groups.

We feel very confident that between them playing the remaining round and the scoring that they need to do at the end, we should be done approximately about 10:10 a.m. That gives us enough time to re-pair. We'll be going off two tees playing in threesomes at approximately 10:40 to 12:40.

THE MODERATOR: With that, we'll open it up to questions.

Q. Could you just explain perhaps what the outlook for the weather is tomorrow. Are we getting more wind? Is it going to be nice? Is it going to be -- what's going to happen?

GARY YOUNG: Yeah, we're expecting that once this moves through this evening, we will get quite a bit of lightning and approximately a half an inch of rain out of this front as it moves through. That should be about it for the weekend after that. We look good for the weekend.

We are expecting I think in the 10- to 15-mile-per-hour range for winds both days, Saturday and Sunday. So it should be a sturdy challenge still with the wind.

Q. I know we have weather, obviously, and there's weather at Pebble and frost in Phoenix and whatnot, but what is going on in terms of pace of play generally, because it seems like it's slowing down? Do you have that same observation?

GARY YOUNG: No.

Q. Could you still elaborate.

GARY YOUNG: I think that, you know, this golf course is just one that there are so many situations that happen out there. We have seen some big numbers, and there seems to just be holes that can come up and bite a player at any time and result in a high score.

So the pace of play has been just what we've expected. It plays anywhere from four hours and 55 minutes for the first groups, and looking at the results of yesterday's, it got as high as five and a half hours. But that is just the result of the challenge of this golf course that it provides, design-wise, and also the size of the field that we're playing. It is a challenge, but we feel very confident that we're playing at the pace that we anticipated.

Q. Talking to players as they come off, a lot of them have been told that they need to speed up, been warned. Some been put on the clock. My understanding is that yesterday alone that not one group met time par yesterday. So my question is, if that's all to be the case and you've just said the reasons why, you're aware of that, why would you not, A, change time par, and/or B, why would you force guys to get frustrated when there's nothing much they can do because you've outlined what the problems are?

GARY YOUNG: Yes, if you think about the time par that we've established, that's based on historical data that we have accumulated over years. So the time par is very comfortable.

We hold the lead group on both nines -- you want to look at it as a nine-hole story rather than a 18-hole story. So the lead groups on each nine, we hold them to time par, knowing that if -- we hope that they will play in time par or less. If we hold them to that standard, everyone else's job behind them is to stay in position with them. They're leading the train on each nine.

They make the turn, and unfortunately, due to the fact that we do have the number of groups that we have playing, they will eventually run into the back of the pack on each nine. We warn them and we time them to keep the rack tight together.

That is the ultimate -- we've got to keep each group in position with the group ahead of them. The players know and understand that that's their responsibility. If they fall out of position, that's when they get warned. That in effect leads to timing.

If once they're warned, they lose time, so that's just our that's our policy. The players know that, they get that warning and then we expect them to make up time, but certainly not to lose time. So those have led to some of the timings that you've been made aware of.

Q. If they're playing on the time that you expected, they weren't going to finish the second round, even if there was no delay. So does the TOUR see no problem with -- because it's become an about bit of a pattern. Does the TOUR see no problem with the Saturday morning cuts?

GARY YOUNG: We're a membership organization. We try to maximize the starts for our members. That's always been a priority, and we just understand that we will, unfortunately, have to finish sometimes on Saturday morning. That's just the way it is. The numbers are the numbers. It's a mathematical equation. You can figure it out.

There's just, you know, at times there is too many groups. So we're comfortable with that, and until that changes, we will continue doing that.

Q. I was curious to see the front pin on 17 which you usually see on Saturday. Curious what the thinking was there. What do you have in mind for the third round?

GARY YOUNG: So the question was about the front hole location at 17 during the first round. We have, from time to time, gone down to that front shelf twice, and that is also the plan this week. So we will return to that front shelf for round 3 tomorrow. And then our traditional middle right-hand hole location for round 4.

THE MODERATOR: All right, thank you, Gary for the time, appreciate it.

GARY YOUNG: All right. Thanks, everyone.