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BELLSOUTH CLASSICMarch 31, 2005Dave KaplanSlugger WhiteDULUTH, GEORGIA JOAN vT ALEXANDER: We thank Slugger White and Dave Kaplan for joining us for a few minutes, and I think I'm just going to start with questions and let them tell you what's going on with the tournament. Q. What's the scenario going forward? SLUGGER WHITE: Well, what we'll try to do, obviously, is finish 72 holes by Sunday. A lot is going to be determined -- a lot of it is going to depend on what happens tomorrow. Quite honestly, we've got a bad forecast tomorrow, too. But our looking past that, if we happen to play tomorrow, and the first round tomorrow, second round on Saturday, and then try to finish 72 holes on Sunday. I think the scenario there would be probably go to 36 holes on Sunday. Q. Monday is out of the possibility? SLUGGER WHITE: It's not out of the realm, no. Monday is in the mix. But our first obligation is try to get 72 holes in by Sunday. Q. How much rain has the course taken? SLUGGER WHITE: I think it's about two, a little over -- almost two and a half inches of rain. We were expecting anywhere from a half-inch to an inch and a quarter. We got more than that. Mike Crawford and his staff are out there busting their backsides to get everything done. They have done a really good job, but there's nothing you can do. It finally stopped raining about 12:30 I think, a quarter to one. They are out there now. They are going to be pumping fairways, pumping bunkers and pushing water to the basins. There's a lot of work to be done out there right now. Q. What's your first option if you can't play tomorrow? SLUGGER WHITE: Can't play tomorrow; have the first round on Saturday and have the second round on Sunday. SLUGGER WHITE: And play 36 holes on Monday. Q. Is Luke Donald the only player to have pulled out so far? SLUGGER WHITE: Right. He called this morning. Evidently went to a testing center yesterday and he aggravated something in his shoulder and he was just afraid to go on and he said his shoulder was sore, so he withdrew. Q. Was that before he knew there was any delay in play? SLUGGER WHITE: That was early this morning. No, he didn't know -- I don't know the time frame on it, really, to be quite honest. Q. It could be 18 on Monday, too, it's not necessarily 36 on Monday? You want to do 72 but it still could be 54 on Monday? SLUGGER WHITE: It depends on tomorrow. It will depend on tomorrow. Like I say, our goal is 72 holes Sunday. I'm not trying to be evasive, but we just have to wait and see what tomorrow brings us and see where we're going. JOAN vT ALEXANDER: Would you like to talk about tickets. DAVE KAPLAN: Having done this now for 23 years, this would be my first Monday finish if it happens, and we wrote a Monday finish plan about, oh, I don't know about, eight years ago and we'll see if it works. Today we have been working on getting paved parking lots to use on Saturday, Sunday, Monday, if we go there. I've got a couple of schools up here on Old Peachtree Road to let us use their parking spaces. Our grass lots will probably be washed out and it will be -- you know, but we have a contingency plan for that. As far as tickets are concerned, Thursday tickets will be good Friday and Thursday, and Friday tickets will be good Saturday if it comes to that. So it's tough on the volunteers who have worked hard all year long and are excited about this week. It's their week on the PGA TOUR; and sponsors, fans, it's just frustrating for everybody. Q. How does this course handle this amount of water? SLUGGER WHITE: I think it does pretty well. We were at field capacity. We were saturated; I think we were a little over two inches on Sunday, two and a half. With field capacity like this, it was actually fairly dry yesterday. We were looking at it late in the afternoon, 6:00 yesterday afternoon, but once you start getting this moisture in here, it just comes right to the top and there's no place for it to go. But it drains fairly well. It just needs time. You saw what happened on Tuesday and Wednesday. It did extremely well, and then all of a sudden we get this bottom out again. Q. We asked this Mark this in California, Florida; have you ever seen a year like this that's just so consistently weather-plagued? SLUGGER WHITE: I think I have. I remember, it seemed like maybe three years ago, we just felt like we all had wet feet for so many weeks. I think it was three, maybe four years ago, I'm not positive about that. Last couple of years have been pretty good. This year's been miserable, and it started right out at Mercedes and it hasn't quit yet. It's funny, this is the only part of the country where it was raining on our screen this morning. Q. When did the two and a half inches fall from, when to when? SLUGGER WHITE: Well, I got hear about -- right before 6:00 this morning and it was raining and it didn't stop until about a quarter to 12:00 or 12:30 today. The accumulation was there. We'd have a little pocket, we'd get a little break, but the break wasn't light rain; it was moderate rain, and it became moderate to heavy. We never had a break where it could do that. Q. So it could actually be longer than the six hours, 4:00 in the morning? SLUGGER WHITE: I think it started at 3:00. Some someone told me 3:00. |
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